Moon in Capricorn
by tuesday blue
Summary: Night is calling. Will you answer?
1. Chapter I

Moon in Capricorn  
  
_In you I feel the east  
The tail end of the sun  
Which makes me think of the time  
I listened only to nocturnes  
And felt the breath of the night,  
Dwelling in its cold embrace_  
  
  
EARLY MARCH. 1900.   
  
  
Creeeeeeeak!  
  
Jack Kelly opened the door slowly and slipped into the darkness of the unlit room. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room and gently pushed the doorknob behind him in an attempt to close it as soundlessly as possible. Bracing himself, he held his breath until the almost inaudible click of the door shutting was heard. The sudden downpour had caught Jack in its fury, leaving his clothes and hair thoroughly soaked and his eyes wild. He crept through the room, taking slow and careful steps across the wooden floor. Peering through the darkness, he stole a glance at the old clock mounted above the desk of the lodging house. The faint glow from a streetlamp outside was not enough to make the numbers visible on this dark and viciously stormy night. He waited for the next flash of lightning to strike, taking long deep breaths to calm his pounding heart. The smell of must and wetness filled his nostrils. As he had hoped, a streak appeared suddenly outside and illuminated the clock's numbers just enough for Jack to make out three forty nine.  
  
Three forty nine? Had he really been out that late? "Dammit," he whispered under his breath and cursed his foolishness for being out so late. If Kloppman were to wake up and catch him sneaking around at this time of night, he'd have Jack cleaning the stalls in the washroom for weeks as punishment. With this in mind, he tiptoed over to the staircase, and nervously began to make his way up the steps. He chewed on his bottom lip as he usually did when he was in a state of utter concentration. As he sucked it into his mouth, he could still taste the faint traces of blood where the soft skin had been slightly severed. Her. He smiled as he thought of her face and the act they'd just shared in the alley a few blocks away. Even now he could still smell her on his fingers and taste her on his breath.   
  
_ "I'm sorry," she had breathed in a mumbled whisper, after unintentionally biting his lip in a moment of frenzied passion. Her usually hushed voice was now barely audible through his kisses. "Did I hurt you?" He'd, of course, answered with a decided "No," but in truth his lip had stung a bit. He took the pain as a windfall – the burn of it had only intensified his pleasure._  
  
He'd known her only five days. No, five nights, he corrected himself. Only at night had he been in her presence. When he'd asked her about why that was, she'd only shrugged and said, "I'm just that way. Nocturnal. My clock's a bit off, if you know what I mean."  
  
Jack felt his body jerk as a clap of violently resonant thunder shook the room and jarred him from his daydream. He shook his head to jolt himself back into reality, ran his hand through his messy wet hair and continued his ascent.   
  
"Jack is dat you?" a whispered voice called out from the top of the stairs.  
  
"Snipes? Yeah, it's me. Whaddaya doin' up dis late? Get tah bed!" he sternly whispered back.  
  
When he reached the top, Jack was greeted by Snipeshooter, who had evidently not obeyed. "Hey Jack, whatcha been doin' all night?"  
  
"Dat ain't nothin' ya need tah worry bout. Now, go tah bed like I tol' ya to dah foist time befoah ya wake Kloppy up!"  
  
"Alright, alright," he grumbled, "I was just goin' to dah washroom when I hoid-"  
  
"Ssh!" Jack cut him off abruptly.   
  
"Fine den," the younger boy mumbled, turning on his heels and heading back into the bunkroom. He was annoyed at being ordered around and mocked Jack and flipped him off with both middle fingers. He smiled, confident that Jack was blind to his act of blatant defiance by the murky darkness.  
  
Jack made his way into the room of sleeping and snoring boys and fumbled his way to his bed. Once there, he quietly disrobed, tossing his worn shirt and dirty pants on the ground. His red bandanna he tied around the bedpost before gently hoisting himself onto the upper bunk with only one small creak of complaint from the bed.  
  
"Heya Jack," Crutchy sleepily mumbled from underneath him. He had obviously been awakened by the shake and saw of the bed caused by Jack's climb.  
  
"Hey Crutch," Jack responded.  
  
_He'd met her on his way home after another long and tiresome day. Night had fallen and shrouded the city streets in a deep fog. Jack walked quickly, his arms grasped tightly around him to keep the moisture and cold out. "Read your fortune, mistah?" a soft feminine voice touched with an English accent called out to him from behind. He turned around to see a raven-haired girl standing behind him, smiling. Her appearance was wintry: her long dark hair framed a pale face with two mirrored pools of black for eyes. Her build was small and slight, and she was clad in dark clothing. A slight wind came up and ripped through the both of them. It ruffled the girl's hair and long skirt, but she seemed unaffected by its chill.  
  
Jack felt around in his pocket to quickly assess his pocket change. When his fingers felt that there was a larger sum of coins than he'd expected, he pulled out a bright copper penny. Flicking it into the air, he asked her, "How much?" As he flicked it once more, she reached up with her small hand and plucked it from the air before he could catch it. "That'll do," she told him assuredly. With a smile, she turned away from him and walked to a corner that was lit by a streetlight. Jack followed her through the midst.  
  
She sat down on the steps of a tenement and motioned for Jack to sit beside her. "Your palm," she requested after he had sat down. He handed her his left, and she took it in hers, lightly brushing a fingertip over his palm. He prickled at her touch, the small hairs on the back of his neck stood up and his heart raced. Her skin was smooth and soft, but her fingers were unbelievably cold. "No, your other one," she softly uttered in the same whispery voice, "You don't use this one."  
  
Jack was a bit taken aback at this statement. He cocked his head to the side as his brow furrowed and his mouth slightly dropped open in confusion. "How'd ya know that?" he questioned.  
  
Without looking at his face, she reached for his other hand, and said, "I know these things." She grasped her thin, icy fingers around his right hand and turned his palm up to face her. Placing his hand on her lap, she traced her finger over his ink-stained palm. "Yes, this is much better." She raised her head and her dark eyes met his. A small grin came across her face. "Your other hand was smooth," she told him after a slight pause, "Your clothing does not suggest that you lead a life of privilege. Now, this one-" she gestured toward his right palm. "It's calloused. This one you use."  
  
She looked at his opened hand in silence for a few seconds before drawing any conclusions. "Ah," she said with, "You've very bold, very determined. I see that you have many friends. They all respect you very much and consider you to be the leader among them…Hmm…but you are somehow not satisfied with this. You're for some kind of adventure, aren't you? Something wilder than the streets of this city."  
  
"What are ya, some kind of gypsy?"  
  
She brought her gaze up to meet his and smiled at him. It was a wise smile that assured him that she knew many things that he did not and perhaps never would know. "I suppose you could say that," was her answer._  
  
From the moment that she had touched his hand, Jack Kelly had become completely taken with her. He was infatuated with her air of mystery – utterly intrigued by the way she looked, talked, and moved. The next day he could not take his mind from her and found himself thinking about more her face than selling his large stack of papers. Instead of advertising made-up headlines with his usual vigor, Jack stared into space, daydreaming and replaying scenes from the previous night in his mind. Yet, he knew nothing about her. After their first encounter, she'd left him with nothing more than a name – _Marion._  
  
He laid down in his bed, careful to make his movements minimal so as to not wake Crutchy again. Jack pounded his fist into his limp excuse for a pillow, and then rested his head upon it. He yawned deeply and pulling up the thin, threadbare sheet around him, let his mind drift to the day before.   
  
_Kloppman and the rest of the boys had planned a celebration in honor of Jack's birthday. As night fell, the Manhattan Lodging House was filled with boys from almost every part of the city: Queens, the Bronx, Harlem, Midtown, and even Brooklyn. Jack had always been one to make friends wherever he went. They filled almost every room of the house – newsboys playing poker with their arms draped over giggling girls, taking swigs of liquor when old Kloppy wasn't looking, smoking, and dancing to the lively jigs of a makeshift band of musically talented newsies.  
  
Jack had made certain to invite Marion, but two hours into the festivities, he'd still not seen one glimpse of her. Of course, she had given him no promise that she would come. When he delivered his invitation to her the previous night, her response had been cryptic: "Oh, tomorrow's your birthday? How queer. Mine is the day after. Perhaps we were fated to meet after all, Jack Kelly. Our stars seem to have been aligned from birth."  
  
He'd positioned himself in a chair that had a clear view of the entryway and only halfway listened to the jokes and stories that his friends were telling. All of his attention rested on that one large, dark wooden door. At one point, he thought that he had seen her enter. His heart began to pound rapidly in his chest at the site of her long dark hair and fair skin. But when the girl turned around, Jack was dismayed to find that he recognized her as Kid Blink's latest conquest. Disappointed, he returned to his chair and pretended to be interested in listening to Race's drawn out account of his day at Sheepshead Bay.  
  
Noticing his friend's detachment and the intensity with which he was staring forlornly at the door, Race sought to bring Jack back into the conversation by making a joke at his expense. "So, where's ya goil, Jack?" Race asked, flicking ashes from his cigar, " I doan think she exists, fellas. She's some kinda ghost… a phantom - a figment of Jacky-boy's imagination!" The group of boys burst out in laughter at Race's musings.  
  
"Yeah, ha, ha, Race," Jack retorted sarcastically. He leaned over to bludgeon Race in the back of the head, but stopped short when he caught sight of the opening door. He paused in mid motion, turning all of his attention to the entryway. A small, slight figure clad in dark clothing stepped inside and softly shut the door. As she lifted her eyes to meet Jack's intent stare, the world around him stopped and blurred to near nonexistence. He quickly abandoned his friends, and rushed to meet her at the door.  
  
"Heya Race," Kid Blink spoke up and motioned toward the door, "I tink dat's your phantom."  
  
"Hey," Jack called out, running a hand through his messy hair as he approached the door, "I thought ya weren't comin'."  
  
"I never said that," was her response, "You should stop making assumptions before you know the truth." She flashed a grin at him and looked over his shoulder to scan the room. "There's quite a few people here," she commented.   
  
Jack nodded in agreement. He watched her shining eyes dart over the crowded room. At once, her traveling gaze stopped. The smile faded from her face, and a worried expression replaced it. He twisted around to see what could have caused the change in her mood and found that her stare was focused on none other than Spot Conlon, who was currently laughing and chattering with a few other boys over a game of poker. Jack watched at Spot looked up and noticed Marion's eyes upon him. Immediately, his laughter stopped and he became silent, his stormy blue eyes returning her stare with increased intensity.  
  
"S'mattah?," Jack asked, turning back towards Marion, "You two know each uddah?"  
  
"No, I've never seen him before," she replied, still staring intently.  
  
"Den what's dat look for? Ya lookin' at him like he done somethin' to ya.."  
  
"I don't care for him," she stated matter–of-factly.   
  
"But you never met him. Never even talked to him. How can ya tell?"  
  
"One can tell some things just by looking at him," she brought her eyes to Jack's face, "He's confident. Overly-self assured. He cares for nothing but himself. Look there now, he's got one girl on his lap while he steals glances and shares private unspoken conversations with that beautiful blonde in the corner."  
  
"Who?" Jack asked, turning around once again, "Lizzie Connors? Aw, dat's nothin' Spot and her have been friends since dey was born. Dere ain't nothin' between them. Dat goil on his lap though - Raven - she's his hot little number of the month. Those two can't keep their hands off of each uddah."  
  
Marion shook her head in disagreement. Still retaining the far-off look in her deep eyes, she said, "No, you're wrong. There's something. I can see it." She shook her head slightly as if returning from a trance, and once again, her smile returned. "It's your birthday," she told Jack, "You should be celebrating." She took his arm, and he led her into the sea of people.  
  
A little past an hour after she had arrived, Marion informed Jack that she must be going. Jack objected and urged her to stay, but soon found himself walking out of the door to bid her goodbye. They stood face to face on the sidewalk under a lamp as waves of misty fog crept into the city. "You can't leave by yaself," he protested once more, " A pretty goil like you shouldn't be wanderin' the streets late at night. Lemme walk ya home."  
  
She put a finger to his lips to silence him. "I'll be fine. I promise. Now, go back inside and enjoy your party." With that comment, she turned to leave and soon disappeared into the mist.  
  
After Marion had left, Jack made his way over to Spot, Dutchy, and two other newsies that were engrossed in a game of poker. Raven, Spot's latest girl sat on his lap, softly running her fingers across the back of his neck while he concentrated on the hand of cards recently dealt to him by Dutchy. As Jack sat down beside him, he nodded a hello and looked up at his companion. "Hey Ravy," he said to her, "be a doll and get me somethin' tah drink, will ya?"  
  
Raven looked at Spot inquisitively. "Since when am I your servant?" she challenged him with playful defiance in her voice. She was known for being as tempestuous and fiery as she was beautiful.  
  
Spot flashed her his most winning smile and said to her in his most honey-dripped voice, "Please Ravy? I can't leave now." Raven raised her eyebrows and looked at Spot as though she were deciding whether or not he was worthy of the effort. Finally decided that he was, she conceded, sliding down from his lap and giving him a quick kiss on the lips before departing. "So, Jack," Spot began, tapping his cane on the floor, "Dat goil you were wit earlier was somethin' I must say. Race came round heah earlier talking about some kinda phantom that ya been runnin' around wit. Dat her?"   
  
Jack nodded. "She looked at ya like she knew ya, Spot. What's dat about?"  
  
Spot shrugged. "I dunno. I ain't never seen her befoah." After hearing the defense, Dutchy looked up from his hand, his soft ice blue eyes seemingly questioning the truth in Spot's statement. "Whaddaya lookin' at?" Spot threatened.  
  
"Nothin'," Dutchy shrugged and returned his attention to his hand._  
  
Jack had always lied awake in bed long after the other boys had fallen into a snoring, dream filled sleep. This was the time when his mind was usually filled with visions of Santa Fe and the life he might lead there. But for the past five nights, his thoughts were filled only with her. It wasn't that he minded, though. If anything, he welcomed the distraction. Santa Fe was a dream that he'd long cherished but considered almost unattainable. Marion, however, was attainable.  
  
In his mind, she lingered like a haunting refrain to a song whose lyrics were still indiscernible. Images of her face played before his mind's eye like photographs – pictures of their nocturnal encounters. That night was no different. As the storm raged on outside the window and the rain continued to pour down upon the thin walled structure, Jack's eager mind drifted back to the previous hours. His ears fell deaf to the howling wind and the constant pounding of water on the rooftop as he became immersed in warm visions of hours past.  
  
_"Meet me on the corner of 94th and 2nd," she had told him, "Eleven o'clock sharp. Don't be late." Jack promised her that he would, and true to his word, he stood under a streetlamp at the designated corner at ten fifty two. Waiting for her, he relit the butt of a cigarette he'd smoked half of earlier that day. He blew out a puff of smoke and ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip, tasting the distinct flavours of old nicotine and newspaper ink that had worked its way inside of his mouth.  
  
As he stood silently awaiting her arrival, he was surprised when a hand reached out and grasped his arm. He could feel the coldness of its fingers through his thin shirt. With a forceful tug, he was pulled into the alley. It led him through the narrow passage, around garbage cans, over old wooden crates, and under rusted pipes and broken gutters. Jack blinked repeatedly, trying to force his eyes to focus in the sudden absence of light. He could vaguely make out a small figure, moving quickly in front of him. Suddenly, the figure stopped halted. Its hold on his arm eased and then released. Jack blinked again, his eyes becoming slightly more adjusted. He could now ascertain that it was feminine – her long skirts and hair were blowing in the gentle breeze. And she was coming closer to him.  
  
Without warning, she took hold of him and slammed his back against the brick wall behind him. Jack gasped as the air was knocked out of his chest. She brought her mouth down upon his and kissed him hungrily. Marion. She pulled away slowly, her icy fingers lingering on his face as she retreated, leaving Jack utterly breathless. His eyes had now fully adjusted to the dim light and he could clearly see the features of her pale face, her large dark eyes staring out from under her hair.  
  
"Marion," he breathed, "you didn't have to be so rough. It wouldn't have taken any persuadin' tah get me back here, ya know. All ya had to do was ask."  
  
She smiled. "That's not the way I like to do things, Jack Kelly," she whispered coyly, "You should know that." Jack pulled her thin, supple body into his arms, thoroughly enveloping her in his strong embrace. He ran his fingers through her hair, and taking a lock of it to his nose, smelled the fragrance wafting from it – so strange, so exotic. Bringing his hands to her soft face, he pulled her toward him and surrendered to her.  
  
With each maddening kiss, he dove further and further into her dizzying spell. The world around him shook and shifted – his skin tingled as she ran her electrifying touch over his back and sides. Never had he felt more alive. He was oblivious to the cold and the scrape of his skin against the jagged brick – he was only aware of their shallow breaths, the heat of her mouth, and the way she felt against him.  
  
Unable to contain himself, he took hold of her and changed positions. Holding her against the wall, he pushed back her coat, pulled the sleeve of her dress off of her white shoulder, and burned it with kisses as she ran her hands through her hair. 'Jack," she whispered, her voice slightly wavering, "Jack, I want you to take me."  
  
"What?" he asked, a bit stunned, "Heah?"  
  
"Don't make me beg you," she said in a voice laden with quiet intensity. The corner of her mouth rose in an entreating half smile. "We shall be one another's gift."  
  
Jack brought his hand to her face and ran his thumb along her the porcelain skin of her cheek, smearing black ink over its creamy pallor. With one swift movement, he pushed aside her skirt and indulged in the act he'd dreamt of night after night. As she gave herself over to him, Jack quickly noticed that she was trembling. "Is something wrong?" he asked, "Yer shakin'. You want me tah stop?"  
  
Marion shook her head. "No. I'm fine. It's just that I haven't eaten in a while." She smiled and pulled him into another deep kiss. Light rain began to fall around them, gracing their hair and clothing with sparkling pearl-like droplets._  
  
Jack had just begun to drift off into a peaceful slumber when the door to the bunkroom swung open violently and slammed into the wall. A shadowed figure stood in the doorway and burst into the room. His face was red and he held his chest as he gasped for air, out of breath from running with all of his might. He was thoroughly soaked from the rain - his hair was matted to his forehead and his eyes wild.   
  
"Jack!" he shouted, clutching his chest and gasping, "Jack!"  
  
Jack and the other newsies clad only in their undergarments were quickly jolted from their peaceful slumber. They crawled out of bed, moving slowly and groggily as though sleepwalking. When they opened their eyes, they recognized the exhausted boy as Esco, one of Spot's Brooklyn boys with whom they were well acquainted.  
  
"What is it?" Jack asked the Brooklyn newsie anxiously, "S'mattah?"  
  
"It's….." he was still panting heavily, "It's Spot…"  
  
Jack's heart immediately came into his throat as sudden fear and dread gripped his body and made him go cold. "What about him?" he asked in a low voice. The other boys sensed the apprehension in Jack's voice and instantly waves of fear came over them and shrouded the room in a dark cloud.  
  
"What's wrong wit Spot? Huh? Spit it out!" Mush yelled.  
  
Feeling the tension grow, all of the other boys started screaming at once, urging the Brooklyn boy to tell them what he had come to say.  
  
"Shuddap! All o' youse! Shuddap!" Jack screamed over the clamber, "Let 'em talk! For Chrissakes, let 'em talk!" The roar suddenly ceased and a hush fell over the room as they awaited the important news.  
  
"Dat goil Raven had come tah see him earlier," Esco began, "She had stormed into dah room, screamin' at Spot. Tellin' him dat he was a lyin' cheatin' bastahd that she was gonna kill him. Obviously, she found out about dat pretty-faced Lizzie goil dat Spot's been foolin' around wit. Anyway, Spot pushed 'er into his room and den dis big fight stahted. We'se could hear 'em screamin' even wit dah door shut. They was makin a lotta noise – we hoid 'em beatin' on dah walls, stuff breakin'. Dat goil is real vicious. And Spot, he ain't no bettah. They get into fights all tha time – real fights, wit hittin' and all. We figgahed that dere wasn't anythin' unusual goin' on. So we just left 'em alone tah beat each uddah senseless.  
  
Aftah a while, it got kinda quiet again. Tommy, dah liddle one, snuck over tah Spot's room and opened dah door a crack to get a peek inside. He said he saw Spot layin' on his bed wit dah lights out. Said he looked like he was sleepin'. We thought we'd jis leave 'em alone and not distoib him, cause you know how Spot is about stuff like that. And den-" The boy's voice broke as a breath caught in the back of his throat, nearly choking him.  
  
"Come on, Esco," Jack encouraged in a quiet voice.  
  
"An den," he took off his cap and wiped the water and sweat from his brow with his other forearm.  
  
"He's stalling," Jack thought, "Must be really bad."  
  
"Den," Esco continued, "aftah tree hours we still didn't heah nothin'. So a few of us decided to go check on 'em. We knocked on his door and he didn't answer. Spot's a real light sleepah. He woulda hoid us and woke up. So we knocked again. Still nothin'. We woiked up our noive and opened dah door. Spot was still layin' in dat same position on his bed. He was on his side, and his face was lookin' at dah wall. His windah was open too. J.B. walked into dah room and went up to 'em, to ya know, shake him and wake 'em up. He went ovah dere and touched his shoulda and tol' him to wake up. Den J.B. looks at his hand and screams. I ain't nevah hoid a scream like dat come outta nobody, much less J.B!"  
  
He wiped his brow again. "So we all ran ovah dere. We was all shakin and scared. We fumbled around for a match and lit a lamp as quick as we could. When we held it over dah bed, we saw dat his sheets were wet and dahk red!"  
  
Jack closed his eyes. His heart rose into his throat, and he felt a sharp pang in his now twisted stomach. Esco did not have to finish his story for him to know what had happened. While he'd been out having a grand time, his best friend lay in a pool of his own blood, slowly dying with no one to save him. Jack cursed himself, cursed his foolish self-involvement for not sensing the potential danger and preventing the horrible tragedy that befell Spot. However, in his heart he knew that there was nothing that he could have done to save him.  
  
Esco's voice had now risen to a frenzied panic. "It was dat goil, Jack. Dat bitch Raven!" he exclaimed, "Her and dat damn pocket knife o'hers! Dere was two cuts on his neck where she slashed 'im. One down the side and da uddah across his troat! She cut his troat and den climbed outta dah window so none of us would find her!"  
  
"What tha hell are ya doin heah den?!?" Race shouted, lunging toward Esco, and grabbing him by the collar as he shook him violently. "Shouldn't you be out dere lookin' for her?!?"  
  
Esco pushed Race off of him with a violent shove. "Dat's what we'se tryin tah do! Every last one o' us is out dere, combing the streets trying to find dat goil! I came ovah heah to see if any of you'se had seen er!"  
  
All of the boys sadly shook their heads in dissent. Jack looked around at the others. Their fearful eyes were upon him, awaiting some kind of comfort – some words of wisdom from their leader to tell them how to feel, what to do. His heart was heavy and the pain in his chest was great. What could he tell them? What could he say to these boys who looked to him for advice? He found himself at an utter loss for words. His heart pounded, each beat resounding like the thunder outside and bruising his chest.  
  
"What are we goin' tah do, Jack?" Dutchy asked, his voice low and mournful – voicing the collective sorrow that all of the newsies in the room were feeling.   
  
He opened his mouth to speak, his troubled gray eyes filled with pain and confusion. He was choked by the emotion welling up and making the back of his throat burn and his eyes sting. Not to mention that he was also exhausted by what he had been told and the multitude of difficulties that it had brought on. When he finally uttered words, his voice was one of a worn and weary leader, who's own heart was filled with an overwhelming multitude of fear and sorrow. "Find her," he muttered, his tone resigned and angry, "I doan care what ya hafta do. Jis' find her. And when ya get ya hands on 'er, bring her back heah. I doan give a damn what anybody else says, I wanna see her foist." 


	2. Chapter II

Author's note: This was originally intended to be a one shot. I, in fact, entered it in a few contests as a one shot. But my memory is failing me as to which. Therefore, if you are reading this because I've entered this into your contest, then disregard this chapter. Bitte und danke.  
  
I own nothing. Marion is the soul product of my creativity.  
  
Thank you in advance to anyone who dares to read or comprehend this. I am aware that I have a somewhat twisted mind and that my thinking tends to stray quite a bit from the ordinary.  
  
_For Raven, because she would not let this die._  
  
  
Chapter II  
  
_Life does not increase  
Only loses itself each day  
As the sun gives way to the moon  
So I simply close my eyes  
And breathless and foolhardy  
Ask the moon to try me once more_  
  
Jack sat alone on the sill of the open window. The muggy night's damp air wafted in and left its fingerprints on his face and in his hair. Hesitantly, he struck a match against the sole of his worn boot, and raised his hands to shakily light his sixth cigarette of the hour. The small cramped attic of the lodging house was like a haven to the boy. Used primarily for storage, it was the only place that was somewhat his – that musty smelling, dark, damp and cramped space. The northward facing window made for a fine watchtower of sorts. The city was dark and dank, the streets only faintly visible. Jack could usually see a far piece down the road from his perch, but that night, his vision was severely hindered. "Too much damn fog these days," he grumbled and cursed the murky darkness.  
  
_"Jack, shouldn't we be callin' the coppers or somethin'?" one of the boys had asked.  
  
Jack curled his lip at the suggestion. "What? You think they care bout street rats like us? Huh? They don't give a damn about us or nothin' that anybody does to us. No, we gotta take care o'this ourselves." He'd lashed out more forcefully than he had intended, but the thought of the truth behind his blatant statement seemed to warrant force. "Sides, if we called 'em, they'd want to blame it on one of us or start some other kind of trouble. No. What goes on here, stays here. Anyone opens their mouth, and they're gonna get a personal soaking from me. Is that clear?"_  
  
He heard a light rap at the door and turned his attention to the doorframe in which a solitary figure stood. Dutchy stepped out of the shadows and approached Jack, his blue eyes mournful. "Anything yet, Dutch?" Jack asked.  
  
Dutchy shook his head slowly. "Nothing." He was silent for a moment before biting his bottom lip and hesitantly asking, "Jack, um, what we gonna do about the, uh, the um body?"  
  
Jack looked at the younger boy, his gray brown eyes piercing unseen holes through his friend. He said nothing in return.  
  
"Are we gonna bury him, Jack?"  
  
He laughed. It was a cold mocking snorting laugh through his nose. "We can't do that. We ain't got enough money to buy a plot in any goddamned cemetery in this goddamned city. We'll make do, Dutch. We'll make do…..even if we have to throw him in the river."  
  
Dutchy looked appalled at Jack's solution to his problem.  
  
Jack shrugged as if it were no uncommon occurrence and maintained a stone face. "What do you want me to do Dutch? Huh?" He took another drag from his cigarette and exhaled the smoke through his nose. "Anyway, it's only fittin'. He spent so much time on those docks. And we ain't got no other way. We can't just leave him there. There ain't no other option. Get word to Kit in Midtown. They're stiff lipped enough over there. Ask 'im if he wouldn't mind sending over two of his iron stomached ones to make arrangements."  
  
_Spot Conlon had joined the world of the newsboys, the poor and orphaned, and the less fortunate when he was eight. From where he had come, no one knew. As though her were a ghost, he had simply appeared on the doorstep of North Brooklyn's lodging house one cold November evening. Since that day no one had ever dared question him about his past, and he had offered no information. Jack, himself, had first started his paper-selling career in North Brooklyn. He had been nine at the time, tall for his age, and had towered over the small wild-eyed boy that went by the name Nathaniel Conlon. In the years following, Jack had joined his friend Kid Blink and taken up residence in Lower Manhattan, but kept close ties with the new boy the others had dubbed "Spot." For years, he had watched him grow from the quiet, plotting young boy to the strong and mighty force as the leader of the toughest territory in all of New York. Yet, something mysterious still remained about the boy. Something oddly unsettling. It was a though a shadow loomed over him. Jack only saw this aura about him from time to time, yet when it did appear, it unnerved him.  
  
Once Spot had pulled Jack aside with worry in his eyes. "You know we been through a lot together," he said. Jack nodded in agreement, uncertain of his friend's intentions by such a statement. "Well, through all of these fights and wars and stupid things, do you ever think you might not make it?"  
  
Jack had shrugged at his comment, obviously confused. "Whaddaya talking about Spot?" he questioned.  
  
"I dunno Jack," Spot said and then turned his way, "Sometimes I just think that since I've managed to come out of so many rough situations alive, that I'm bound to not make it out of one someday."  
  
Jack had only scoffed at his friend's confession. Brushed it off as nonsense. "That's crazy talk," he had told him, "You're Spot Conlon. If anybody can get himself out of a scrape, it's you."_  
  
Jack heard a loud bang and clatter downstairs. He and Dutchy both started at the sudden noise. "That sounds like the door," Jack said, leaping up from his perch and pushing past the other boy. He tore out of the door and down the narrow attic stairs with Dutchy following close at his heels. When he reached the first floor, a crowd of anxious boys had already filled the lobby. Jack pushed through them to find two of Spot's best birds, Brix and Skidsy, carrying a limp body. Her left eye was blue and black – violently bruised indigo, her lip bloody, and her long red-brown hair hung down in dirty, matted waves. Her gray pants were torn at the knee and her shirt dirty and stained with blood and filth.  
  
"She's unconscious," Skidsy mumbled through his clenched teeth. "We had to hit 'er in the 'ead pretty hard to get her here. She put up a real good fight." As he spoke, he wiped at a cut on his cheek that was still trickling blood and looked at the blood in disgust. They tossed her onto the hard floor rather roughly, but still she did not wake.  
  
"Don't you wanna put 'er in the bed or something?" Mush piped up, his voice wavering with worry.  
  
Jack looked at Mush. His gray brown eyes burned though him. "What for?" he spat. Mush back down immediately, throwing his hands in the air cautiously and slowly stepping backwards in submission. Turning his attention to the newcomers, Jack reluctantly asked, "So, where'd ya find 'er?"  
  
"Over in the Bronx," Brix spoke up, "We kinda let it out that we was looking for her. Not for anything in particular, you know? But just looking for her. Spot's got a more than few friends around, and well, Menace – that Bronxie with the weird looking, shifty eyes – told Esco that she was there, and Esco sent us over. Who woulda thought that Menace's flapping lips would've even done any good, huh?" Jack offered a small laugh in response. "Yeah, I bet none of the Bronxies had any idea what she was doin'. Running over there the middle of the night like she did….So, uh," Brix continued, "Whaddaya want us to do with 'er?"  
  
Jack looked from Brix to Skidsy. Their stone faces offered him no ounce of help or comfort. He struck another match and lit a cigarette as he stooped down to a squat to think and assess the situation.  
  
"I know what we can do with 'er," a sneering, malicious voice came out of the crowd.  
  
Jack raised his head to see Kid Blink push his way through a group of kids, and come forward. A strange smirk was painted upon his face. Jack had known the boy long enough to know that Kid was not as wholesome as he was commonly made out to be. When provoked to extremes, the one-eyed fellow could be downright dastardly and cruel. This seemed to Jack to be one of those times, indeed. He braced himself for whatever was next to come forth from the sneering boy's mouth.  
  
Blink licked his lips and gestured down to the unconscious Raven with raised eyebrows. His upper lip curled. "I say," he stated, raising his contemptuous gaze to his fellow comrades, "That, we, um, each take a turn with her." He shrugged apathetically, "You know – get her back for what she did to Spot and make ourselves feel a little better about it. It ain't like she'd notice, seein' that she ain't wakin' up for a while." A few of the boys laughed nervously at his comment. Blink snickered back in return and began to unbutton his pants. "And it's not like it'd make a difference to the bitch. It's not too long ago that she whored herself our professionally, ain't it?"  
  
"Put it back in your pants, Kid," Jack commanded loudly, his voice cold and monotone. "Now. What's wrong with ya? Huh? You suddenly got no brains or somethin'? Just cause she made a mess outta Spot don't give us not right to treat her like she's not human. We ain't animals here." He paused and glared at the blonde boy for a moment of tension-laden silence. "Well, you might be, but I sure as hell ain't. And on my watch, ain't nobody doing nothing of the sort."  
  
Blink indignantly buttoned his trousers and sneered at Jack, his pride obviously beyond injured. "So, what then? Huh, Jack? You got some answers for us? Cause we're all waitin'."  
  
He rose calmly from his stooped position, rising to his full six feet of height. His posture was straight, and his voice dignified and authoritative as he spoke. "We'll take turns keeping watch over her till she wakes up. There ain't no chance I'm sleepin' tonight, so I'll take the first shift. Specs, Snoddy – you two take her up to the attic and put her in that old extra bed. The one with the broken leg. Tie her hands behind her head to the bedposts. Make sure they're real tight. We don't want no more trouble tonight. Bumlets, you got with 'em in case they need a hand. Check 'er pockets too. Make sure she ain't carryin' nothing."  
  
True to his word, Jack did not sleep that night. He kept a close vigil on the sleeping suspect, nearly jumping out of his skin with her every slight moan or jerk of the body. He nervously chewed at the quick of his right thumbnail and tried to dismiss the anxious, desperate feeling that tried to overtake his mind. Money in his pocket, a family, Santa Fe - it all seemed so far away. Stability, hope, security, love…freedom. Suddenly it was as though everything he had ever wanted was slipping away from him, and he was doing nothing. Nothing but dying. Each day older meant a day closer to punctuating all of his dreams with the word "never." The infiniteness he had felt the past few days was slowly being swallowed with realizations of his own mortality – the fragility of his existence. And he hated it. He hated finality.  
  
The girl's body began to stir and Jack was jolted from his melancholy reflections by her abrupt movement. He first thought it was only another false alarm, and waited for her to return to her silent, unmoving slumber. However, when she continued to toss restlessly and moan, he watched over her anxiously, growing more convinced that she was coming out of her unconscious state. Soft groans of pain escaped Raven's lips. Her eyes opened and immediately she cringed, her brow furrowing and her mouth twisting into an expression of sickly pain. "Fuck," was the first word to come forth from her mouth. She blinked twice and spotted Jack sitting on the sill across the room. She cast a confused, questioning gaze his way, as though she remembered nothing of the events that had recently taken place.  
  
Jack gazed back at her in silence. When he finally spoke, he was able to manage a civil, "Well, you've looked better Raven."  
  
In response, Raven coughed and winced from the pounding in her head. "Don't flatter me, Jack," she said in a low, pained whisper. "I know I must look like a fucking mess. I feel like a fucking mess, that's damn certain." However, after looking up at her hands and seeing that they were firmly tied to the bedposts, she laughed in spite of herself and her predicament. Jokingly she mused, "Heya Jacky, you got me tied to the bed. You wanna have a go?"  
  
"Wha-" Jack scoffed in utter disbelief at her audacity to say such a thing at such a time. He took a drag from his cigarette and angrily blew the smoke out of his nose. "What the fuck, Raven??? Cut the crap."  
  
"Oh, shut it, Jack. I'm just joking. God. I was only trying to lighten the mood."  
  
He was not on his feet and pacing back and forth."Well, that ain't light Raven. Those ain't no joking words!"  
  
_Though he would not hear of any mention of any intimacy between he and Raven, Jack Kelly had at one time given in to her temptation. It had only taken a few days of being in her presence for Jack to begin lusting after her. He was immediately taken with her dark, voluptuous beauty and her brazen ways. Jack felt as though she silently demanded his eyes to look at her. She approached life with a certain bravado and possessed a mouth that was cruder than any hardened man's. He fell hard for her daring and her uninhibited nature. Her rawness. The way she expected so much for him and the way he just had to give it to her.  
  
He began to upon her as a challenge. Winning the affections of such a strong willed woman would do wonders for his image and ego, even if the affections won lasted only one night. Jack was surprised when he discovered how easy it was to earn her trust, and soon he began to imagine that she possibly had possibly wanted him as much as he wanted her. It seemed to him that their friendly banter had begun to border on sexual innuendo, and he began to take notice of the way she looked at him when he walked into the room. For a while, he was able to stifle his ever growing male desires, convincing himself that she was far too good of a friend to intrude upon in such a way. And the closer they became, he also started to sense that there may have been something about her that wasn't exactly whole. That she was broken, betrayed perhaps, and he vowed that would not be one to crush her any further  
  
But liquor will often perform strange alterations to even the strongest of good intentions. Three months into their acquaintance, Jack had gotten his foolhardy hands upon one bottle of scotch and another of wine. He'd chosen Raven to share it with, and the two had spent the night getting intoxicated beyond recognition. He couldn't remember what exactly had triggered it – a look in her eyes, a slight inviting smile, perhaps she had even called him handsome – but soon, he found himself taking her in his arms and undressing her. Kissing every last inch of her skin and laying her in his bed. She allowed him to take what he wanted from her, but as he did, it was not triumph that he felt. Though he was inebriated, he still felt the full weight of his actions and it tore at his heart. As he moved within her, she and his own body became foreign to him. Distant. He was not himself taking pleasure in the having of a beautiful woman, but a stranger, cruelly taking advantage of a woman because he could. However, he knew he must continue. Jack would she would take his retraction to heart as imperfection in herself. No. He could not allow himself to humiliate his friend in such a way. Besides, should he stop now, he knew full well that he would not feel satisfied, and soon his lust would again urge him back to partake in more. So, take her he did. But every motion of his body against hers produced a bittersweet feeling. And when it was finally over, he was only left with a sick feeling in his stomach and the bitter sting of regret.  
  
After that fateful incident, the two once close friends were as two ships passing in the night. Moving past each other in the hallway without speaking. Managing awkward conversation when they found themselves alone in a room together. It was not long before Raven moved on. For reasons she would not disclose, she packed up her few possessions and moved to Brooklyn. Jack had always assumed that the reason was him, but he never dared ask her. Raven came to reside in the Brooklyn Lodging house and shortly after became enamoured by the intoxicating charm and wit of Spot Conlon. Jack was more than happy to give her over to the open arms of his friend. With her living in Brooklyn, he found that he was able to cultivate a better relationship with the wayward girl. He assumed the roll of an older brother – constantly watching out for her best interest, lighting into Spot when he stepped out of line, and fishing her out of the many troublesome situations she seemed to be always falling into. Spot suited her better anyway, he thought. He was a better match to her sharp tongue and her boundless pride. They had fought like two bitter tomcats since meeting, but Jack had always thought they were really happy somewhere down deep inside._  
  
Raven now stared at his cigarette with hunger in her dark eyes. Licking her cracked lips, she asked, "Last cigarette before facing the firing squad, Jacky? For old times' sake?"  
  
Jack laughed at her statement and rolled his eyes.  
  
"Come on now, Kelly. Don't make me beg. You know that's not my style." Her voice was grave and raspy – laden with a sort of sorrow and resignation that he had never before seen in the strong spirited girl. "It's my dying wish," she added somewhat lightheartedly, but became silent once more when she realized the weight of the words she had just uttered.  
  
Jack fished another cigarette out of his pocket. It was his last, but he lit it and pressed it to the girl's lips. She sucked the smoke from it as if she were sucking life itself from the roll of paper. When it had burned down to his fingertips, he threw it to the floor and stifled its flame with the toe of his boot. Sighing, he returned to his post and once again turned his attention out onto the dark streets.  
  
"Jack, don't think I'm not hurt by this." Her voice was small and wavered slightly as it traveled from the other side of the room. "Don't think I don't feel as scared as you do."  
  
After a long pause, he softly asked, "Did you do it, Ray?"  
  
Her response to his question was only silence.  
  
After only an hour and sixteen minutes of restless sleep, Jack awoke at daybreak, groggy and still heavy hearted. Delegating two of his boys to keep watch over their captive, he excused himself from guard duty, citing a pressing need to get out of the house before it suffocated him. So, he goes out to sell his daily papers, buying twenty-five extra than his usual hundred to keep his mind thoroughly occupied.  
  
_"What's the matter with you?"_  
  
Jack looked up and found himself staring into Marion's dark eyes. Uneager to return to the lodging house, he'd taken a long walk after selling the evening edition in which he'd meandered nearly all over Lower Manhattan. He found himself drawn to the warehouse where Marion had once asked him to meet her. Leaning against a streetlamp in front of the building, he'd waited, in hopes that perhaps she would wander by. Somehow, he knew with an eerie certainty that she would.  
  
Marion. Though he once tried to, Jack could not blame her for the downward falling events that had plagued his recent days. Whatever guilt she might have had was indirect. Besides, she was his only source of distraction. As his eyes traced the outline of her pale face, his only desire was to lose himself in her. He wanted her to take him away from all of the guilt and the anxiety. The pressing sorrow that stabbed him repeatedly in the chest. He wanted her to take it all away from him, even if it could only be for a simple moment. "Nothin'," he lied to her.  
  
She looked at Jack, her eyes questioning. They examined his face as though she were trying to translate his pained expression into spoken words. "C'mere," he said in a resigned voice and pulled her close to him. "Just kiss me and don't ask me questions."  
  
_"You seem preoccupied tonight."  
  
In response to her comment, Jack's face betrayed him by forming a semi-startled expression. He was lying amidst a makeshift bed of worn linens and a tattered blanket spread across the worn wooden floor. Marion sat beside him, a single candlestick, the only light in the room, casting oddly shaped shadows upon her face. "I'm sorry," she said softly, "You said no questions."  
  
The room rested on a platform high into the upper recess of the warehouse. Marion had led him through an intricate maze of crates, large pieces of machinery, bared supports of former walls, and other debris, up three flights of rickety and unstable stairs, and under a pile of broken beams into the place that they now occupied. It appeared to Jack to be the remains of some sort of old overseer's office that she had converted into a dwelling space. Linens on the floor as a bed, her dark coat draped across a faded cloth desk chair, a small bag resting on a waist-high table, and several candlesticks were placed among the pieces of old furniture and assorted remains.  
  
These few things were probably all she had in the entire world, Jack thought, and he felt somewhat sorry for her for having so little and being forced to live such a solitary existence. However, she did not seem to want for lack of anything. There had always been a sense of contentment about her – an odd mask of peace. Viewing her living quarters made her seem like less of a phantom. She was grounded. She was human. Like anyone else, she needed a place to stay, a roof over her head. She was not some wandering spirit who only appeared to young men in the night. Her surroundings made her real to Jack and reassured him that she was not a figment of his over active imagination.  
  
"There's just a lot on my mind these days," Jack finally managed to explain. She nodded her head, seeming to understand, and asked no more from him. Leaning over, she brushed his forehead with her lips. As she did so, a small chilling draft whistled through the room, causing the candle's flame to flicker under its breath. Jack was still a bit on edge, and looked slightly startled at the sudden cool gust of air. Marion, seeking to ease his mind said, "It isn't the most sound of buildings. There are holes everywhere. It leaks most terribly when it rains." She sighed and lifted Jack's head to rest on her lap.  
  
"Ssh,, go to sleep now," she murmured. "You are very weary. You need to rest." She ran her cool fingers through his hair and brushed the back of her hand against his forehead in a gesture of comfort. He wanted to open his mouth to protest. To tell her that sleep had not come to him in some time, and would not that night either. However, he soon felt his eyelids grow heavy and begin to fall. "Sleep," he heard her whisper once more before his eyes shut completely, and Jack became utterly lost to the world._  
  
When he next opened his eyes, he found himself in his own bunk. Sunlight streamed in through the nearby windows and after several blinks, Jack could make out three familiar faces staring at him. "Wha? What the?" he asked, "How did I get back here?"  
  
Mush shrugged. "You walked, I guess. You came in real late last night. Told us you were going to bed. We figured that we shouldn't bother you since you hadn't been sleepin' much lately."  
  
"What time is it?" Jack asked, severely disoriented and confused by Mush's explanation of the previous night's events. He did not remember walking to the lodging house or talking to anyone there. He did not remember climbing into his own bed and falling asleep. The last thing he remembered clearly was Marion's soft smile as she stroked his hair and whispered to him to go to sleep.  
  
"It's eleven thirty four," Dutchy answered.  
  
Jack shot up to a sitting position. Flustered, he ran his hands through his hair talked in stuttered phrases. "You let me sleep all day! What about sellin'? What about Raven? Who's watchin' her? How the hell could you let me sleep all day???" He clawed at the sheets, madly throwing them from his body.  
  
"Relax Jack," Specs piped up. "It's all under control. Bumlets and Snoddy are watching Raven. And we all know you got enough money stashed away that you don't have to worry about missing one measly day of sellin'."  
  
"Yeah," Mush added with a worried look plaguing his eyes, "Sides, you ain't been lookin' so great these days. We figured a little extra sleep could do you some good."  
  
_Spot Conlon was laid in his final resting place that afternoon. Kit, the leader of Midtown, had sent two of his older, hardened newsboys over to "take care of things" as Jack had requested. Spot's body was placed in an old burlap sack and tied tightly. Nearly all of the boys under Jack's leadership, several others from Midtown, Harlem, Queens, and the Bronx, and every last one of North Brooklyn's newsboys' arrived at the docks to pay their last respects to the fallen leader. Not a tear was outwardly shed by any of the boys.  
  
Many words of respect and glorification were said in honor of the once mighty Spot Conlon, but the short speech delivered by Jack was especially moving. So much so that he had a hard time stumbling through it. His inspired words only made his heart ache with remorse for his friend, and he still could not shake the feeling that his own life hung by a fragile thread. So, as he tripped and fumbled through the lionizing commemoration and grandeur, the awful gnawing pain returned. It twisted his insides as he listened to the mournful words of the other speakers. It ate him alive at the two Midtowners lifted the sack, and nearly finished him when Spot's body was offered to the river with one last, resounding splash. "Such a waste," he thought as he watched the last of the ripples in the water dissipate into nothingness.  
  
Jack stood in that same place on the docks staring down into the murky water for what seemed like hours after. The group had disbanded, each boy going his own separate way. One by one they parted company, patting Jack on the back or offering him words of consolation or comfort. "Sorry, Jack." "Hang in there, Jack." "He's in a better place, Jack." All of them were more than eager to escape the mournful cloud that hung over those docks. But Jack had lingered behind. He did not know what kept him riveted to that spot, but something rendered him unable to move. It was as though he had a mission to complete - a promise to fulfill. Perhaps his heart or his soul was transmitting something incommunicable to Spot through the river. An explanation. An apology, maybe. He knew not what it was that the river or his friend wanted from him, but he could not tear himself away until the unseen force was finished with him. "What do you want?" he asked the gray-green ripples, but they offered back no answer._  
  
Jack slept fitfully that night. His sleep was littered with dreams that were oddly real, but made no sense. Only one did he remember. It happened after he woke for what seemed like the hundredth time. He opened his eyes, groggily looked through the haze at the clock and saw that it read three fifty four. When he shut his eyes and fell back into a shallow slumber, Jack dreamt something that seemed more like a recollection than a product of his unconscious mind. Almost as though it were a memory.  
  
In his dream, he envisioned Spot sitting at the end of his favourite pier at sunset, Pier #6. Spot acknowledged Jack as he approached, but just as quickly turned his attention back to the horizon. He looked the same as he always had – gray cap pulled down low over his eyes, sleeves rolled up the elbow, faded red suspenders dangling carelessly from his pants, slingshot in his right back pocket. Except not a mark hindered his smooth appearance. Not a cut or a scratch or a bruise from a scuffle marred his skin. Jack thought this a bit odd, but did not question the boy. He simply sat down beside him.  
  
"If I had money, that's what I'd buy," Spot said, still intently gazing out onto the water.  
  
"The river?" Jack asked him, a bit confused.  
  
"No," Spot said, shaking his head and gesturing with his right hand, "The place where the sun touches the water. I'd buy a place out west where I could have some land and a lake or something. Then I could watch the sun hit the water everyday and say, 'Yeah, that's mine. I own it.' And then I'd finally own something that mattered. Something worth having. Something that wouldn't ever go away…." Spot's voice trailed off. "So, what'd you want to talk to me about?"  
  
Jack did not know why he had come, much less what he had come to discuss. "I don't know, Spot," he said, furrowing his brow.  
  
Spot shrugged. "Yeah, me neither…You know we been through a lot together," he said.  
  
Jack nodded in agreement  
  
"Well, through all of these fights and wars and stupid things, do you ever think you might not make it?"  
  
"Sometimes," Jack responded. He had heard this speech before. Previously he had responded differently. Foolishly. Now, he knew better than to repeat his first mistake.  
  
"The street don't give, but it sure does take."  
  
Jack nodded once more. "Ain't that the truth, Spot."  
  
Spot turned to him at that instant and looked at Jack as though he were staring into his very soul. His blue gray eyes were ablaze with intensity. "When you gonna let it stop taking from ya, Jack?" He the stared out onto the water once more. "Life's ticking away, Jacky-boy. We ain't getting no younger. Might as well make the best of it while we're still sucking air." 


	3. Chapter III

Author's Note: Took me long enough, didn't it?  Thanks to all of those who actually read this despite the fact that it is painfully strange and almost nonsensical.  Thou art brave souls.  This chapter has been brought to you with the help of a song called "Famous Blue Raincoat."  You may notice that I've stolen some of the lyrics and dispersed them amongst the story's text.  Though its content has nearly nothing to do with the story, the mood of the song is perfection.  Wistful, dark, melancholic.  Yes. 

Everything's a songfic now, in some way, shape, or form.  I can't help it.

Chapter III

"Jack, you leaving again?"

As he neared the doorway, Jack paused and raised his mournful gaze from the floor to answer the imploring eyes of Mush.  "Yeah Mush.  I am," he responded in a low voice and pulled his cowboy hat onto his head, placing his other hand on the doorknob.

"But you've been gone every night for the past two weeks or so," Mush replied

Jack shrugged.  He sighed and answered in a resigned voice, "What do ya want me to do, Mush?"  He stared at his friend forlornly for a moment before adding, "Because I sure as hell can't stay here."  When Mush didn't answer his question, Jack nodded a goodbye to the younger boy and turned the doorknob.  As he walked out of the door, his parting words were only, "Keep an eye on the girl."

To say Mush was worried about his friend would have been an understatement.  In fact, almost every one of the Lower Manhattan newsboys was growing quite concerned over the state of their leader.  The once jovial, fun loving boy with the devil-may-care attitude had seemingly been replaced by a solemn, silent, brooding person completely foreign to his friends.  Jack was slowly becoming a mere shell of himself and distancing from the rest of his boys in the process.  Each night he left the lodging house, the same look of deep thought and concentration plaguing his face.  No one ever dared to ask where he was going or when he would be back, but each night, one of the boys would stay up and keep watch for him. 

This act of playing sentinel went unbeknownst to Jack.  He was far too lost in the troubles of his own mind to notice the careful pains took by his boys look after him.  Yet, without fail, each night that he left the lodging house to commune with the streets, one or more of the other newsboys would forgo sleep to faithfully await his return.  Jack Kelly had always taken care of them.  They now considered it their duty to return the favour.  In Jack's absence, they whispered amongst themselves, discussing his health, his poor eating and sleeping habits, and what in could possibly be done to help him.

Jack had taken up the late night walks in order to distract himself.  Though they only served to ease his mind a little, they did provide some sort of activity to occupy him.  And he welcomed the activity wholeheartedly.  He would meander all over Lower Manhattan without a set course or destination in mind.  Sometimes taking the same paths twice or three times.  Once, on a night in which he was particularly troubled, he found himself in North Brooklyn, but was not clear on how he had arrived there.  The walks provided him with a small sense of freedom.  When he was out tramping through the city, alone and filling his lungs with the sharply cold air, the burden of his lot of boys was seemingly not so present.  Out there he was only responsible for himself and did not need to constantly give thought to how to break up a fight between the little ones or why Snoddy hadn't come back yet, or how Race was going to have enough money for the next day's papers after his bad day at the track.  When he was walking, he did not have to think about his captive.

The date of the Raven's trial was rapidly approaching. 

_"Last time I saw you, you looked so much younger."  These words had rung loudly in Jack's ears for days.  He'd heard them a week ago in a casual conversation with Bryan Denton over a lunchtime meal that the older man had treated Jack to.  Denton knew nothing of the tragedy that had taken place and the dark shadow that had fallen over Jack as a result.  "No word of this to anybody on the outside," had been Jack's warning to the rest of the boys.  What happened with the newsies stayed inside the ring of newsies.  This had always been the unspoken rule they adhered to.  They lived and died by it because they had to.  _

_Though his tone had been light and teasing when he uttered them, the truth of his words overpowered Jack and stuck in his mind.  The jovial newspaperman certainly had no idea the weight and force of the words he offhandedly spoken in conversation.  However, Jack was certain that he indeed did look younger when Denton had last seen him.  The past weeks had not been kind to Jack Kelly, and the evidence showed upon his face.  _

Often he ended up at Grand Central station to stand on the platform for what seemed like hours.  Each train that passed he watched with intense interest.  He considered hopping one – any one of them.  Their destinations did not matter to him.  All that mattered was that these trains would carry him to a place that was not New York City.  That was not heavy and laden with all of Jack's current worries.  This sufficed for him.  They were freedom. 

The steam from the trains enshrouded him.  "Ha," he thought, "Can't get again from the damn fog anyway I try.  Even on a clear night, there's damn mist everywhere."  _You're living for nothing now_.  The quiet nagging voice presented itself again and was whispering its doubtful messages in Jack's ear.  "No," he told it.  There was so much to live for.  He was only eighteen.  Eighteen.  A whole life ahead of him filled with wide-eyed dreams.  When did he give up on them?  Why did he suddenly think them void?  "Santa Fe, my old friend," he whispered to himself as he dropped the remainder of his cigarette to the ground and stifled it with the toe of his boot, "I can't spend my whole life hidin'."

On his way back home, Jack came across a poor boy sitting aside the streets, rattling a dented tin cup in his hand.  He could not have been any more than eight, and his stature was so small and diminutive that Jack had nearly tripped over him while walking by. "Any spare change ya can spare mistah?" the boy asked in a cockney accent, raising his wide, hopeful eyes to Jack.  His voice was small and weak, and his body hopelessly thin.

Jack stood silent for a moment, looking down at the pitiful sight before him.  In all honesty, did not have any spare change.  The concept of something being spare was completely foreign to him in fact.  He thought of the trains at the station, and felt his own stomach growl and lurch.  He had not eaten that day.  Every penny he could spare was being put in a small cigar box hidden under a loose floorboard behind his bed.  He was saving up.  Yet, as he looked into the wide eyes of the frail and dirty boy, he found himself unable to resist taking pity on him.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change.  It was a good deal – Jack could have eaten three meals on it at least and it would have served as a nice addition to his savings. 

Therefore, he stooped down and placed the entire handful into the beggar's cup.  The boy's eyes widened even further.  Small as it was, Jack doubted that the kid had ever seen that much money in one place before – much less in his possession.  He ruffled the urchin's hair.  "You remind me of me friend Les," he said feeling the sorrow lift from his heart for a brief moment as he thought of the younger boy.   "Hey, do somethin' good with that okay?" The boy enthusiastically bobbed his head up and down, the gratitude apparent in his expression, and Jack stood to leave. 

"Thank ya, mistah!  Thank ya!" the boy called out after him.

"Life's too short to be greedy," Jack reminded himself.   He turned and gave the kid a tight-lipped smile and then strode off.   Marion would be proud, he thought.  Spot would have been also.  _Spot.  "_No, don't think about Spot," he told himself.  "Keep thinking about the girl.  At least she's still alive." 

Jack watched the sun as it dipped below the river on the horizon…a blistering ball of hot orange fired being squelched beneath the dark waters.  The air smelled of heat, dirty, and burning wood, but he still inhaled the cleanest breaths he had ever taken.  Dusk was settling in and flecks of stars began to pepper the violet gray sky.  The pungent aroma of beans and a handful of sausages being cooked over the open fire filled his nostrils as his horse approached the campsite.  He petted its blonde mane, released the reins and slid down from the saddle.  His boots hit the ground with the clinging of his spurs and he began to beat the dry dust from his pant legs.  Jack offered a lopsided, but content smile to the older man tending to the pot, who tipped his hat in return and said, "Snipes, give me back my shooter.  You know that's my best one!  I had to trade Tiny three o'my others for that one.  You're just jealous cause I got it and you don't.  Gimme it back now!"

Jack groaned.  He held both hands to his ears and tried to drown out the sounds of the other boys.  He had been sitting in the square for about half an hour, leaning against the base of Horace Greeley with his eyes closed and thinking about Santa Fe more than he should have.  "Snipes, give him back the damn marble!" he muttered and clamped his eyes shut more tightly, trying to make the fanciful images of Santa Fe appear before his eyes once more. 

 "How are you, Jack?"

Jack opened one eye to a squint and raised his head toward the voice.  "Like you care Lizzie,"  he said to the girl standing before him.

"What?"  she responded, the tone of her voice sounding a bit incredulous.  Her blue eyes searched his for a moment, looking for some explanation or reason for his careless comment.  When she found none, her voice dropped to a whisper.  "You know, you're not the only one suffering.  Spot was my friend also.  This hurts me too, Jack."

"Yeah, yeah.  That's what everybody keeps sayin'.  Why the hell does everybody keep sayin' that?"  Jack shook his head in disbelief.

"I don't know," Lizzie returned in a quiet voice.

"Yeah, anyway, you didn't care.  I think you just wanted Spot to prove that you could have him.  You're so aloof and cool, Liz.  You think nobody notices, do you?  Well, I can see right through ya.  You're so fake.  That's just a show.  And now, look's what's happened."  The words fell from Jack's mouth like an un-dammed river, and he spat them out like they disgusted him.   Lizzie's face fell a bit more with each sentence, but he paid no mind.  "I gotta give you credit though….I believed you were innocent.  I was told that you and Spot had something going, but I said, no, that's not possible.  They been friends forever.  They're just close like that.  But then I shoulda listened to what they said, huh?  You made me look like a fool.  A real dumbass.  Did you even come to the funeral, huh?  Cause I didn't see you there.  I don't think you cared about anything.  Ray…well, Ray mighta killed him.  She mighta killed him in cold blood, but she did care about him – I know that.  Hell, she might be a bitch and a fucking killer, but she cared about him.  You?  Well, I dunno bout you."  

Jack spoke quickly, unloading all of his pent up anger on the poor girl.  In truth, the verbal lashing he so readily dispensed may have been quite unprovoked by the girl, but at the moment Jack did not care.  He would latter mull over his actions and regret speaking so forcefully and hastily, he was sure.  But at the moment, she was present and therefore, a perfect scapegoat.  The pain just had to go somewhere, it seemed.  Disgusted,  Jack rose and stormed, leaving Elizabeth Connors sputtering in his wake.

_"You see her over there, Jack?"  Spot had asked, his gray blue eyes glinting with amusement.  "She wants me something awful.  She does, but she's just playin' hard to get."  He winked at Jack and then called out to the fair, copper-haired  girl standing across the room, "Ain't that right, Lizzie?"_

_"Isn't what right, Spot Conlon?" she called back.  _

_"That you can't resist me!"  Spot returned with amused sarcasm in his voice._

_Lizzie Connors rolled her eyes as she lazily sauntered over to where Jack and Spot were standing.  "Oh, please Spot.  You've been telling me that for years.  Do you think that if you keep saying it, that I'll one day change my mind?  If you do, you can just stop right now. Because it's never going to happen."_

_"Oh, Lizzie," Spot said, nudging Jack and playfully clutching his chest as though it ached with a pain he could not describe. "You're breakin' my heart.  My poor little heart – you keep stompin' all over it.  When are you gonna stop?  When are you gonna realize that you can't live without me?"  At that, Jack had clapped Spot on the back and the two broke out into laughter.  _

_Lizzie only sighed with resignation and gave both boys a look of amused disdain.  "Yes, Spot," she returned in mocking monotone, "I cannot live another day without you by my side.  Please, please leave your girl and run away with me.  Now.  Because I fear my poor heart shall burst should you not this very moment."  She rolled her eyes once more and shook her head at him before walking away._

_"Lizzie!"  Spot yelled out after her, "You're such a tease.  When will you realize that you are my one true love?!?"  When she said nothing and continued walking away, Spot issued one more plea.  _

_"Elizabeth Connors,  I'm so in love with you that I might just die from it!"_

_He continued laughing along with Jack as Jack showered him with praise.  "That's your best one yet Spot!  Ha ha!"  Jack had told him, laughing so hard that he could hardly catch his breath.  "Your best one!"_

It was well after midnight when Jack spent the last two bits in his pocket on his fifth whiskey.  He drank it down with slow determined swallows and wiped the excess off of his top lip when he had finished.  He sighed deeply.  He was drunk – terribly so and glad for it.  The room shifted a little when he stood up and slid the coins over to the barkeep to pay his tab. 

As he opened the thick door of the tavern, and stepped outside, Jack was greeted by a downpour.  _Rain.  More goddamn rain_.  The rain seemed to have been coming down unceasingly for days.  There was so much of it that Jack thought that perhaps he should just let it drown him.  But though he considered this alternative once more, he instead slipped the cowboy hat onto his head, and stepped out into the sheets of driving water.  He walked a bit aimlessly – not sure exactly where he was headed, but somehow found himself at the warehouse where Marion kept house.  He looked up at the structure and saw a light in the window.  Though it was dim, it was to Jack like a beacon driving him onward.  He could not tell whether or not it was the alcohol impairing his judgment, but the light somehow called out to him, and bid him to go to her in a way that he could not refuse. 

So, go he did.  Between the mists and rain he lumbered, walking slowly to the building.  His steps were clumsy and laden with the effects of the liquor.  He chose the back door of the warehouse to crawl through for it was easy to pry open and was also the entrance that she herself had used when inviting him inside that one time.  He picked his way though the rubble and debris of the failed business and climbed up to her loft on the second floor.   However, upon reaching room, he found it empty.  Yet, he still walked inside and stood beside her makeshift pallet of linens on the floor. 

"What are you doing here?" he heard a voice say behind him, it's tone laced with anger.  He whipped his head around as quickly as his intoxicated state would allow him and stared at Marion though half lidded eyes. 

"Nothin'" he responded, his tongue catching inside of his mouth as the word came out in a lazy slur.

"Nothing?" she questioned curtly, stepping inside the door, her displeasure evident in her tone, yet her guarded expression was unreadable.  A heavy silence pieced the air before she began to speak again.  "I don't remember inviting you in, Jack Kelly."  She stated deliberately as she walked toward him, her dark eyes dense and clouded, but never breaking with his.  "What was it that gave you the notion that you should simply _stumble_ in for a visit?  Do you not respect the privacy of another?  Have you never learned any manners?"

"Look," Jack began, trying desperately to conjure up some excuse that would justify him being there.  However, no retort or explanation came forth.  His eyes searched the room for an answer to her question.  The answer she was waiting for expectantly.  He looked at her and sniffled, thumbing his nose before continuing.  "I didn't know you'd get so touchy about.  I didn't think it was no big deal."

"Well, you were entirely wrong." 

He sighed heavily.  He knew that he had lost – that he had been beat.  In truth, he had no right to be standing there.  He had no right to intrude.  "Marion, I just…"

His voice had broken when he uttered her name and she picked up on the subtle nuances that the change in tone had provided.  The anger fell from her face momentarily and was replaced by a softer expression as she asked, "Jack, why are you here?"

"I don't know," was his resigned reply.  He shrugged and pushed the hat off of his head. 

Jack and Marion had remained sitting on the windowsill in the abandoned office space for hours, looking out upon the wet streets before them.  It had stopped raining and the entire city was soaked in silver;  the moonlight reflecting off of the water adorning the buildings and pavement.  Marion had squelched the light of the candles and lamps.  As she blew out their flames, she claimed the illumination from the moon was far more pleasing to the eye than any man-made light. 

"The fog should be rolling in soon," she had said to Jack, her gaze still directed out of the window and her voice slightly wistful. 

"Damn fog," Jack had remarked in response.  "That's all we get these days is fog.  Fog and rain.  I, m'self, have certainly had my fill of it."  He lit a cigarette and brought it to his lips.  "So, you can take the damn fog if you want it.  But I don't.  It makes everything look so dismal.  It makes the world seem so miserable.  More than it already is."

Marion looked at Jack and gave him a crooked smile.  "Well," she said, exhaling and tilting her head to one side, "It is a sad and beautiful world, Jack."

Jack blew smoke from his nostrils and shook his head in dissent.  "No," he said assuredly, "It's only sad."

_"How would you know?" Marion asked.  "You haven't seen enough of it to form such an opinion.  You don't know anything of the world.  You're too young."_

_Jack's eyes rose to meet hers as he dared to speak questioningly, "And you're not?"_

_She had at first seemed to allow this question to go unanswered.   She remained silent for a few moments before whispering, "Remember, Jack.  You barely know me."  _

_He watched as she continued to gaze somewhat forlornly out onto the streets of Manhattan.  He took another drag from his cigarette and thrust his hand toward her, the palm upturned.  "Read it again," he said to her.  She turned her attention to him, and stared into his eyes for a minute, the look in her own still somewhat obscure to him.  Then she shook her head in refusal.  _

_"No," she said._

_Jack was confused and began to protest.  "But why not?" he asked._

_"No," she said once more.  "You don't want to know what's there.  You ask, but you don't really want to know.  Do you?"  Her eyes remained on his face for a silent moment.  "I thought not," she said, and turned back toward the window, "Besides, I rather like the fog.  It's comforting.  It's constant."_

_Jack was silent as he mulled this bold statement over in his head.  Did he want to know?  Did he really? Perhaps she was correct.  The more he thought about it, the more it became apparent that he was, in fact, better off being ignorant.  So, with her decision, he remained content and spoke not one more word of it to her.  He closed his eyes and took another drag from the burning cigarette in his right hand.  Then, he leaned his head  against the cold pane of the window to fight back the dull ache that had spread across his brow.   Marion began to sing…a soft lilting melody that Jack had never heard before.  He was content to trust in her wisdom fully.  He was content to trust in Marion.  He never considered how strange it was to place so much faith in someone he practically nothing about.  Yet, he did it so readily.  So quickly.  He did it without a second though.  And he didn't even know her last name._

Jack sat stiff in his high backed chair.  To his left and right sat seven others.  Kit Nellwyn of Midtown and one of his boys – Cully Thom.  Lamp of the Bronx.   Mac and Deuce from Queens.  Charlie Mulready out of Staten.  Esco sitting in from Brooklyn.   All friends of Spot, except for Lamp.  But Lamp never could keep his nose out of anyone's business and had insisted that he be invited in due to his status as "leader of one of the most influential territories in the city."  They had all gathered in the back room of the Brooklyn Lodging House for a singular purpose. 

Jack was barely listening to the buzzing of anxious voices around him.  His palms were sweating, and his eyes were shiftily moving around the room.  It all seemed so out of context to him – every bit of it.  It felt unsettling and downright wrong to be sitting in Spot's house, at Spot's table, but it was neutral ground, and it was also the scene of the crime. And then, what had seemed right these days? He could almost hear Spot's voice and laughter resounding off of the old paneled walls.

"Hey, Jacky boy.  How's it rollin?  I heard a little somethin' the other day that'll knock your socks off.  Listen to this…Ha ha.."

"Es, you shouldn't be here," Jack spoke up suddenly.

Esco looked over to him, his confusion made evident by his furrowed brow.  His lip curled, and he ran a hand through his messy blonde hair before shaking his head.  "And why not, Jack?" he asked.

"Cause you're partial."

"What?"

"You heard me.  You're partial," Jack reiterated.  "You're one of Spot's boys so there ain't no way you don't have it in for this girl.  You're looking for someone to blame, so there's no way you're gonna be doing anything but seekin' revenge and that ain't right."  

Esco opened his mouth to refute Jack's comment, but he was abruptly cut off by Kit.  "Jack's right," Kit said. 

"No," Esco insisted.  "I ain't leaving."

"No one says you gotta leave," Kit responded, shrugging and casually tilting his head to the side, all the while steel gray eyes revealing his deathly seriousness, "but you just keep your mouth shut, you hear?  Listen all you want, but you don't say a thing that influences anybody here.  You got that?"  Esco begrudgingly nodded his head in affirmation and Kit swung his gaze over to Jack, who had begun to fidget with his collar and wring his hands under the table.  "Hey Kelly," he asked, the faintest trace of concern appearing in his voice, "You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.  It's just hot in here, that's all."  Wiping the sweat from his brow, he rose from his chair and strode toward the window.  After he had put a crack in it, he lingered a moment and stared down on the streets below.  If he tried hard enough, his memory could make out three familiar figures in the streets below.

"Lemme go," Spot had slurred.  "I can walk." 

"Sure Spot.  Sure ya can walk,"  Raven had said with a laugh.  She and Jack were each under one of Spot's arms, supporting him so that his face would not make an unhappy acquaintance with the sidewalk.  It was about two in the morning and they were returning from a night out in a tavern on the west side.  Spot had already downed one two many beers when an unlucky fellow had asked Raven to dance.  She had accepted, unable to resist another opportunity to get the best of Spot and make him insanely jealous.  Spot took the bait, and marched up to the lad and greeted him with a right hook to his jaw.  Seconds later, the two were on the floor, throwing wild punches at one another.  Spot had quickly taken the upper hand and straddled the young man.  He was steadily and gracefully pounding away at his opponent's flesh when Jack and Raven grabbed him and dragged him out onto the streets.  They then, slowly but surely escorted him home to Brooklyn. 

"Spot, you're so stupid," Raven said, releasing her hold on him and letting him fall onto the steps of the lodging house.  "So stupid," she repeated once more, shaking her head. 

"Ray, I've gotta go," Jack had told her and looked toward Spot.  "Think you can handle him?"

"When can I not?" Raven responded with a smile.  "Have a good night Kelly." 

Jack kissed her on the cheek and as he walked away heard her say, "Alright Conlon, get your sorry ass up and into that house right now.  I'm tired, and I ain't standing here all night waiting on you."

But the pleasant picture was all a figment of Jack's imagination.  A brief bit of bitter nostalgia that now left his heart cold and aching.  It was a product of his grief, he was sure.  The door swung open and Jack turned toward it.  Raven was being led into the room by Brix and Skidsy, her hands still bound.  They released her and the impact of their force caused her to fall to the ground and land on her knees.  Jack started to sweat once more upon sight of her.  He returned to his chair and uttered not a word.  The others' eyes were upon her.  Jack need not look at them to know with what intensity they were glaring at her.  Jack tried to catch her eye, to look into the eyes of his friend, to tell her that he was sorry for what was happening to her.  However, she would not raise her gaze from the floor.  Perhaps it was best for her to appear so placid.  Jack knew that she stood no chance in the world of convincing the others to not lay blame on her.  They would believe exactly as they wished and would not be moved.  Another lamb going to the slaughter, he thought. 

Kit was the first to speak up.  He lit a cigarette and then looked at the girl challengingly and deliberately.   "Well," he began slowly and licked his lips, "What have you got to say for yourself?"

Raven slowly looked up from the floor and into the eyes of the Midtown leader.  The expression on her face is still proud, but somewhat defeated.  Jack watched as she slowly began to open to spit out something nasty and biting, yet she stopped before a sound passed through her split lips.  No.  She would not give them that satisfaction.  Even now, they would not get the better of her.  Turning her head, she looked over to Jack and caught his eye.  He felt helpless as he met her pleading stare, and opened her mouth to say something to her…anything to perhaps offer comfort…yet he could not make a sound come forth.    Feeling helpless and suddenly sickened, he could only close his eyes and heave a deep sigh.  In his ears rang a lilting melody and a haunting refrain…the words of the song Marion had sung the night before.

And as you walk through death's dark vale.  Those who hunt thee down will fail.  Asleep inside death's cold mouth you lay.  Close your eyes, here comes the storm. 


	4. Chapter IV

A/N: This story emerged from nowhere. I don't know where most of the ideas for it come from. Everything written is dreamed up in the process of writing, and only late at night. How the story unfolds is a mystery that is being revealed to me as I try to get it down in a document. It is exactly what it wants to be when it wants to be it. I tried to pin it down with a structured plot and an outline, but the moment I started doing that, it took itself away from me and refused to be written. It lay dormant for about six months before I felt that I could finally start writing again. I read a passage in a profile on AIM (Emu's profile to be exactly). The passage went like this, "I sit in the dark, thinking. I close my eyes. But there is no difference. The dark is still dark. You have to try harder than you ever thought possible. And realize: there will be light." And I thought, that's Moon. I should use that somewhere. Suddenly, it called to me again, and I've not been able to stop writing it since. It's taken three days, which is immensely fast for me. I've forgone almost all of my other projects to get it down before it leaves again. If you don't understand it, don't feel bad. I really can't say that I do either. It makes no sense and perfect sense to me at the same time. This is the strangest and perhaps the most brilliant thing I've ever written. I feel confident saying brilliant because it's not mine to brag about. It is its own and will always be that way. Therefore, enjoy and review please.

(Also, if you haven't caught on by now...it does not follow a linear timeline. All italicized passages are flashbacks to an event that's happened sometime within the recent or not so recent past.)

* * *

Chapter IV

When they brought her in, Raven instinctively cast a forlorn look to Jack, her dark eyes immediately locking with his. Though the others were the ones that spoke, she paid mind to only Jack. She stared at him as though her eyes were willing him to stand up for her. To speak. To say anything on her behalf….for one kind word, no matter how meager. Yet, he said nothing. Even if he tried, he could not force his lips to move, much less have intelligible words come from them. His eyes were unable to break her gaze, so he simply stared silently – his feet riveted to the floor and his mouth stitched shut with steel threads. Her sad eyes pleaded with him further, but still his only offering to her was more silence. Jack thought he saw her shoulders begin to slump and her breaths grow more ragged. Her eyes were red rimmed and her lids sagged. Were they watering? Or were his own that were blurring his vision? Without looking away or faltering, he saw her mouth open slightly and noiselessly form one word.

_Please._

It jolted Jack. Raven did not beg. Raven never begged. Try as he may before the last week, Jack would have never been able to conceive that Raven could be in such a pitiful state. He tilted his head and befuddled, squinted his eyes and searched her face for clarification. "What?" he mouthed to her, hoping that she'd repeat her plea so that he'd be certain of what she had said. However, in response she only turned her head away, apparently humiliated that she had even let so much as that one foolish word slip away from her as physical proof of her vulnerability. Though she didn't reiterate her question, her secondary reaction was enough to convince Jack. The one word, alone, coupled with her air of defeat was enough to practically send him over the edge. His throat began to burn, and his insides shrieked, twisted, and writhed. He felt as though he were holding his breath and had been for hours. His heart was in his stomach and his hands gripped the chair until his knuckles turned white and his palms sweat even more. He could stand it no longer. Suddenly, he rose from his chair. It fell to the floor with a clatter as Jack swiftly exited the room.

"Hey! Where do you think you're goin' Kelly?" Lamp called after him, but Jack neither answered nor heeded the unspoken command to stay. He simply kept going, swiftly striding onward out of the front door of the Brooklyn Charity Lodging House for Newsboys and down darkened Charles Street. He walked at a ground eating pace, his boots rhythmically thumping the cobblestone path. Jack slowed his pace_. Where did he think he was heading? Back to Manhattan? It was a damned long walk._ He cleared his throat and spat sour tasting phlegm on the ground. His pace slowed to nothing, and he ran both hands through his hair twice. He turned and over his shoulder looked back toward the lodging house. The light still glowed orange in the window. He thought of Raven's pleading eyes and how he had just walked out on her. _Again,_ he thought. _I've walked out on her again_.

He licked his lips and pulled his cowboy hat onto his head. Biting his bottom lip, he looked up to the stars and instead found the moon glowing amidst the darkness. "It's the same moon as here," he heard a voice say inside his head. He laughed at the thought. "Well," he said out loud to no one but himself. "If it's the same moon as here, why does it feel so far away?" He cast one more glance toward the glowing window. Jack didn't know whether it was obligation or loyalty that beckoned him back to the lodging house, but after he kicked a stray pebble and cursed himself and his heroic notions, he found himself walking toward it.

"_Well, well...looky who's back," Lamp snidely said when Jack walked into the dank, smoke filled room. _

"_Shut your face, Lamp," growled Jack, pulling up a chair. Its legs screeched painfully against the floor as he dragged it to the table. He turned it backwards and then straddled it, propping his elbows on the table. Glancing around, Jack saw that Raven was absent. "What'd you do with her?" he asked, directing his question toward Midtown's leader._

"_Don't worry, Jack," Lamp answered smoothly, "We ain't did nothing to her. Your boys got her, and they're takin' care of her."_

"_I wasn't talkin' to ya, Leonard. So, like I said before, stick that pipe you're so proud of in your face and shut it before I have to take care of you. I'm not gonna ask ya again," Jack snarled, his voice rising to an authoritative volume. Lamp for once heeded the command. He scoffed slightly and then stuck his grandfather's pipe between his lips, sucking on it thoughtfully as he silently fumed like a reprimanded child. Jack nodded toward Kit, raising his eyebrows to wordlessly pose his question once more. _

"_She's fine, Jack," Kit assured him. "Snoddy and Kid took her upstairs. They're up there with Specs right now. Nothing's going to happen to her. Don't worry."_

"_Raven with three boys alone in a room? My, my...I bet she's not thinkin' about Spot right now," Lamp butted in with a smug smile. Kit shot him one good stern look, and Lamp waved his hands in surrender. He leaned back in his chair and returned to his sulking and pipe smoking._

"_What are we gonna...um...do about 'er?" Jack asked hesitantly. He stared down at the dirty, worn oak of the table, afraid to lift his eyes to meet any one of the other boy's faces. He was uneasy about what the answer might be. In truth, he really did not want to know, and would have been perfectly fine being ignorant of it for the rest of his life. But his compassion made him care and forced him to inquire and await their response with his heart in his throat._

"_The only thing we can do. We do to her what she did to Spot," Charlie Mulready spoke up. He took a ragged breath. "We talked about this while you were gone. We can't come up with anything better that won't cause trouble in the long run." _

_Jack could barely bear the thought, much less speak it. When he finally managed a reply, his voice came out in a choked and wavering, "We kill her?"_

_You got a better suggestion? Lamp asked. "We're not little kids anymore. We ain't playing around here. This ain't some stolen shooter or petty fistfight. This is serious shit."_

"_But we can't just kill her. We're not a bunch of savages that go around murderin' women. What's next? Are we gonna start knocking off the old beggars in the street to put them out of their misery? What about babies? We gonna go down to the orphanages and twist their little necks so that they don't have to know what a miserable life their gonna lead?"_

"_That's not the issue, Jack and you know it," Kit reminded._

"_Oh? It's not?" was Jack's sardonic reply. _

"_Don't be protecting her jack. Don't you dare protect her," Esco muttered._

_Jack sighed. Head in his hands, he wanted nothing more than to live in the past, where life was simpler and his heart weren't so heavy. "Calm down. I ain't protecting her. All I'm saying is that isn't there some other way? Something better? Anything?" He searched the room for comfort, but all he found was a lack of it. He was surrounded by his friends, but yet, in that room, he had no ally amongst them. Every boy present looked at Jack with the same fierce expression in their eyes. They had all learned early on that to tolerate even the slightest betrayal was to invite danger to their table for tea. The absence of tolerance had kept them safe, and to stray away from their code of survival for some tiny shadow of doubt was foolish and would only eventually cause more harm. The urchins and poor boys of the street were a ragged family, but a family nonetheless. Nothing was more important than a fellow family member except for the well-being of the family, itself_. _Jack knew this reality well_. _He had been a firm subscriber to it and swore his life to defend it. How ironic for him to now doubt it and crusade against it. _

"_Fraid not, Jack. Fraid not," said Kit in a weary voice._

_Esco chose that moment to rally behind his leader and defend the fallen Brooky's honor. He looked up, his eyes coloured incredulous and almost menacing. "Don't you understand? She deserved it Jack," he spat out and beat his fist upon the table. He rose up three inches from his chair and thrust a pointed finger at Jack. "Spot was your friend too, even if you weren't outta Brooklyn. I thought that you would be the first one to stand up for Spot, and now you're sitting here in front of everybody defending that whore that slit his throat. You're crazy, Jack. Fucking crazy if you think that you're going to get her out of this with some kind of pity vote. Well, I got news for ya – there ain't no reason anybody should feel any sympathy for that bitch upstairs. Ain't nobody forced her to do anythin'! You know it, I know it, and everybody sitting 'round this table knows it. There's nothing else to it. She brought this upon herself!"_

"_Sit down and shut up, Esco! I thought I told you to stay out of this," Kit said sharply. Esco sat down and held his tongue, but drummed his fingers on the table and shook his head in disbelief. Kit paused as he surveyed Esco. He sighed, and then his voice changed. "But you do have a point. This is the way it has to be." After another ragged sigh, he tapped his thumb on the edge of the table and turned to Jack to state simply, "You know as well as I know that this ain't always about doing what's right or fair. We gotta protect ourselves, that's what's most important cause nobody but us gives a damn about us. And we gotta keep the peace amongst the boys so that all hell don't break loose. That's how it works. That's how it's always worked. Everything we worked so hard for all falls apart if we change it now. I'm sorry, but that's how it's gotta be…..An eye for an eye, Jack. " _

_Jack closed his eyes at the blatant truth of the statement. It was beyond his control, and he knew it. There was nothing he could say or do to change anyone in the room's mind. Besides, why should he? "An eye for an eye," he repeated finally._

_When Jack looked around the table once more, he felt as though he were finally looking with his eyes open. He saw what was really there in the cluster boys gathered close around him and scratching their chins with furrowed brows of worry and contemplation. The harsh reality of it was that they were not the officials set to keep the peace amongst the boys, holding the trial for the goodness and well being of their own. No, they were mere boys, manchildren playing at a grown man's game. They knew nothing of life, only a mere sliver of it that they could mimic...reproduce to their best knowledge. Yet they took it as seriously as they took death or any other harsh matter. And this scared Jack more than anything he had ever known before. _

While he was forced to be absent from it, Jack longed for his own familiar surroundings – the streets, buildings, sights and sounds of Lower Manhattan. Though he'd only been gone a mere four days, he found himself longing to return to it as though he'd been gone from it for a year. He missed his bed and the younger kids' fights and complaints. He missed the comfort of his selling spot and the monotony and challenge of pushing over a hundred papers a day. He sniffed his hands and clothing. They reeked of smoke-ridden mold, water drenched wood, and fish – North Brooklyn's stench. It was all over him...in his hair, on his skin, in his nostrils. As he trudged the long way back to his own territory, he thought of just how nice it was going to be to wash it off of him. It was such a pleasant, welcoming thought that Jack quickened his pace as he drew nearer to Duane Street. Once the lodging house was in sight, he almost broke out into a full sprint. Yet, he held back instead. A few steps later, he noticed a solitary stranger lingering on the front stoop. He squinted his eyes, but could still not make out the figure's identity. When he got finally came close enough, he could make out that it was a female, dressed in long, dark attire. He rolled his eyes, figuring that it was probably one of Blink's conquests that he'd left behind. "Poor silly girl," he muttered to himself, "Waiting out there all alone for him to meet ya when he ain't gonna." Jack shook his head at the fate of the abandoned wench and called out to her, "Hey! What are you doin' there?"

The girl was obviously startled by his cry because she jumped and her hand immediately went to her heart. She whirled around in a flourish of long skirts, accompanied by her long black braid. Once she turned to face him, he could make out the surprise in her round, doe eyes. "Looking for you," was her simple answer. It was not some broken-hearted broad waiting out for Blink, but Marion adorned in a warm smile that almost made Jack forget every last trouble that had wrapped itself so tightly around his heart. "But I heard that you weren't around," she continued, "and no one knew when you might be coming back."

"Yeah," Jack said, shoving his hands in his pocket. He'd left the Brooklyn lodging house directly after Kit had delivered the final word. His obligation to the cause was over, and once the meeting had adjourned properly, Jack had taken hold of his freedom. He was sick of wasting time and effort, sick of the helplessness and pain – sick of Brooklyn as a whole. He shoved the few belongings he'd taken with him into his pockets and told his boys to watch over Raven and make sure nothing happened to her that wasn't supposed to. He was going back to Manhattan, he said. And he didn't care who tried to stop him. Jack wouldn't spend the night with murderers, he assured him as he walked through the door. It wasn't his style. Standing on his own doorstep and happy to be there, Jack simply told Marion, "I was in Brooklyn. Tendin' to some business."

"Well," she asked, eyeing him curiously with hands on her jaunty hips. "What are you doing here now?"

"Gettin' away from some business," he answered. Jack scraped the toe of his boot along the cobblestones and cleared his throat before cautiously starting to speak. "You told my fortune once." Marion nodded. Jack returned her nod with one of his own and continued, "Well, do you know anything about dreams?"

"I know some things about dreams," was her answer.

"Good. Because I've been having a lot of them and there ain't one of them I can say that I understand."

"That's how dreams work, dear. You aren't supposed to understand all of them. Every once in a while, you do come to grasp a few. But it's usually a belated understanding, revealed only with hindsight's perfect vision." As Jack was finding more and more, when she spoke, Marion's words were often cryptic. His brow furrowed, and her face eased into a sympathetic expression as she offered Jack as comforting, compassionate smile. "I'm hungry," she said, "I think there's a diner up the street that's still open. Why don't you let me buy you something to eat, and we can talk about what's been troubling you, okay?" Jack nodded. Upon his agreement, Marion threaded her hand through the crook of his arm, and the two walked down the street arm in arm for a ways until they reached the diner that Marion had spoken about.

The lights inside were still blazing. When Jack pushed open the door, he found the restaurant mostly bare. What remained of the clientele were a few nighthawks and workers knocking off from their last shift. A worn looking waitress stood at the counter, her chignon unknotting itself from its pins and loose tendrils falling around her face and neck. She poured a man in pair of grease stained pants and a dirty shirt another cup of coffee before looking up to see the new arrivals. Marion led Jack to a table in the back of the room. They both sat down and the waitress soon made her way over to take their orders. "What can I get you?" she asked in a pleasant, yet fatigued voice. She turned over two of the coffee cups on the table and began pouring them full of hot black liquid from the pot she held.

"I'll have some buttered bread and a bowl of leek soup. Oh, but make sure the soup doesn't have garlic in it. I don't think leek soup does. I can't really stomach garlic well," Marion answered. Both she and the waitress then looked to Jack.

"I'll just have a cup o'coffee," he mumbled.

Marion's brow furrowed. "Are you sure?" she asked. "Aren't you hungry?"

Jack shook his head. "Nah. I'm not hungry. I haven't been hungry for a few weeks."

"Oh," Marion returned, "Are you sick?"

"Yeah, I might be," was his reply.

The waitress soon brought Marion's food to her. She started in on it hungrily. After a few full spoonfuls of soup, she broke off a piece of her bread and tried to hand it to Jack. He refused, wishing it away with a wave of his hand. Her hopeful face fell slightly, tinged with a bit of hurt and worry. She took another swallow of her soup and said, "Tell me about your dreams, Jack. Describe them to me."

"Well...sometimes there's blood," he began.

"Blood?" she interrupted.

"Well, not all the time. Just every once in a while," Jack explained.

"Why don't you tell me about the ones that you have most frequently then?"

"Well, they're kinda like...." As he tried to recall a vivid example, Jack found his mind drifting backward to a memory. How he'd remembered it or even why it was being brought back to his mind at that moment was a mystery to him. But he leaned back in his chair and let it consume his thoughts. Within it, he allowed himself to escape to a sweeter time. As the light in the room, the furniture, the weather, and the white noise of that day flooded back into his mind, he felt lighter – as though a great stone burden were lifting off of his chest.

"_So, Spot – do you like her?"_

_It was just a simple, innocent question, but Jack had known better than to ask. Spot's eyes flashed a shade of nervous vulnerability. It was sudden and almost imperceptible to the human eye, but Jack caught it. Spot laughed and tapped his fingers on the table. He leaned back in his chair and tilted his chin up so that he looked at Jack through slitted eyes. "Well well Jacky-boy, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you've grown a spine since last time I saw ya," he said. The tone of his voice was one of joking and jest, but behind the smiles there was a note of defensive condescension. Spot's lips curled into a sideways smirk. Jack hated that smirk. He had seen Spot pissing mad, seething and fuming with hellfire and rage. He had also seen him blindly vengeful and merciless. But it was only when he saw that crooked smirk that he felt the most uneasy. It meant that Jack had crossed the line, and Spot was deciding whether or not he would let him escape with his dignity. It meant he had all the cards and knew who would win the hand._

_He stopped laughing and cleared his throat with two short coughs. The smile never leaving his face, he leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table. "Look Jack, Lizzie's something special. She ain't like us, and you know that. I'll admit to that. But what I do or do not do regarding whatever feelings I might be havin' toward her is none of your business, I'd say." He spoke with the assured tone of one telling a small child that fire would most certainly burn him._

"_Alright," said Jack, surrendering. He threw up his hands and played it off as though he hadn't expected Spot to answer all along. He went back to eating his sandwich but as he chewed in silence, he seethed. Jack was older, taller, and as far as he was concerned, wiser. What gave Spot the right to treat him as he did? It was embarrassing, the way the Brooky bullied him sometimes. Jack hated saving face and backing down to his every command. Just once, in one burst of pure glory, Jack wanted to reach across the table and give the smug boy one good swipe across the face with his fist. _

_As though reading Jack's thoughts, Spot leaned over once more and said in a low voice, "Yeah, so I like her. What's it to you? It ain't never gonna go nowheres. I got Ray, and Lizzie can't stand the sight o'me. So, I put her down to just another pretty face that's fun to toy with sometimes. She's probably too good for the likes of me anyway." Spot shrugged. "And Jack," he added after a moment's passage, "If you tell anybody this, you're dead." He smiled widely. "I swear. I'll kill ya with me bare hands." Spot produced a smoke from his pocket and struck a match on the table to light it. As the cigarette smoldered, Spot leaned back in his chair once more and gazed off into the distance. He took a long pull from the smoke's end and added, " And you tell your boy Skittery to keep his hands offa Ray if he knows what's best for him. Does he think I don't have eyes or..." Spot took another drag lowered his eyes to meet Jack's. "Ears?" His lips curled into a knowing smile and he offered Jack a drag. Jack refused and Spot shrugged. "It's gettin' late. Don't you have papes to sell?"_

"_Yeah, Spot," Jack replied. "There's always papes to sell."_

"More coffee sir?"

Jack sat up, startled with the arrival of a waitress holding a piping hot pot of coffee and looking at him expectantly with arched eyebrows. "No," he told her, "No thank ya." He glanced at Marion and found her staring at him with an oddly bemused look painted across her face. "What?" he asked her, sitting up in his chair and rubbing resolutely at his itching nose.

"I was wondering what you were thinking about. You looked so distant. I thought you'd left me," she replied.

"No, I was, uh..." He coughed, the building congestion from too much night air rattling in his lungs. "I was just remembering one of the dreams. It was strange...like a memory or something. In fact, I know it is. I remember it like it was yesterday. We was, me and Spot, sitting in a diner." Jack paused to survey the room. "Yeah, it was a diner a lot like this one we're sittin' in now. And we were talking just like we always did. There was nothing too strange about it, I guess. I just don't know why I'd be dreamin' about something like that." He shrugged, and shook his head as though trying to ward off some unsettling thought. Jack picked up his coffee mug by the bowl of it instead of the handle and took a few full mouthed sips from it. "I'm fine. Really, I am." As he hoped, Marion seemed satisfied with his response and had returned to hungrily gulping down her soup. He was safe – at least for the rest of the night.

Jack didn't know how he got there or why, but he found himself standing in the foyer of St. Peter's Cathedral. He hesitantly walked down the long aisle that split the pews into two sections, each footstep resounding like thunder through the eerily still building. He settled into the seat of a hard wooden pew about eight rows back and stared at the statue of the crucified Christ that rested in a recessed portion behind the very center of the altar. Almost mechanically, he knelt and crossed himself. Still kneeling, he closed his eyes and tried to utter a prayer that he had learned in his youth, but found himself stumbling clumsily over the words as he tried unsuccessfully to recall them.

Frustrated with his lack of ability to bring them to mind, he got up off of his knees and once again sat back into the wooden pew. What was he doing here, here wondered. Church was no place for a dirty, tarnished soul like himself. After the events enveloping his life of late, Jack doubted that he would ever be able to wash enough to be clean enough to ever step foot in any church. In order to make himself more presentable to God, he folded his hands neatly in his lap and resolved to sit until he had emptied his mind of all the foul thoughts that plagued it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another slide into the pew beside him. When he turned, he found that it was a priest attired in the traditional black and white robes. He was getting up in years and most of his dark hair had turned to gray. Yet, he had kind eyes, and a warm, welcoming smile.

"Hello, my boy," he said to Jack. "What's a fellow of your age doing here? One would think you'd be at work."

"Work. Yeah, I guess. I came here to think," Jack answered. "I hope it ain't a problem. Cause if it is, I can leave."

"No, no. It's perfectly fine. All are welcome in God's house," the priest assured him. "What did you come here to think about?"

"Some serious stuff. Nothing that I wanna mention. I just needed a quiet place to think...and I don't know, maybe pray a little or something."

"Are you a Catholic, my boy?" the father asked.

"Yeah. Well, no. Well, I mean...you see, I used to be. I don't know. I guess I'm not anymore," Jack said, his eyes downcast. He didn't dare look at the priest for fear that he'd disappointed him somehow by not being the model of a faithful, practicing Catholic.

"Then, tell me son," the older man replied, "In this great city, what made you seek out a church to take refuge in?"

Jack looked at the priest dead in the eye and answered him point blank. "Because I can't forgive myself for what I've done."

The priest looked slightly taken aback for an instance, but quickly recovered. In a calm, nonjudgmental voice, he simply asked, "And what have you done child?"

"I told you. I can't talk about it. I can't." Jack reverted his eyes back to the floor and nervously tapped his foot on the stone tile below. He was certain the priest was eyeing him warily for such inconsistent behaviour, and it made him nervous to think of it.

"Do you feel lost?" the father asked kindly.

_Did he feel lost?_ In response to this, Jack said not a word. He licked his lips and stared off into the distance. He could hear the brief strains of vocal harmonizing coming from the choir loft. Did Jack feel lost? He thought that perhaps that was exactly how he felt. No one, not even Jack, had ever nailed his sentiments so perfectly. How odd it was that a complete stranger, a fifty-something year old man of God, had pinned down his sea of emotions in one word. Still, answering the father's question or trying to convey his situation This old man would not understand half of it even if he related every inch of it to him in detail. He would not understand anything of Jack's world, and there was nothing Jack could do to help him. Therefore, why should he even try? Why should he make one earnest bit of effort if it would all be grossly in vain? Jack fixed his eyes on the crucifix behind the pulpit and uttered not a word.

The priest was apparently a patient man. He waited in silence, giving Jack ample time to answer if he should choose to. Unbeknownst to Jack, he had quite a bit of experience dealing with the problems of lower class men of his age. Through time and experience, he had learned that it was best not to push or try to coax anything out of young men like Jack. When it became obvious that Jack wasn't going to volunteer any information or offer up the slightest explanation, the priest deemed it proper to pursue another method, one that was closer to his own heart. "If you do feel lost, my child," he began, "You should know that there is no reason for you to. Jesus is the answer to any hardship you may face, no matter the difficulty. He is always there and can guide you through anything. You must only trust and obey him. There is no sin to great for the Lord. Jesus came here to die for our sins so that we may all never have to feel lost again."

"Oh did he?" Jack finally said. "Even for a poor, dirty street rat like me?"

"Yes, my child," was the priest's answer, "He did."

"Yeah, well, I might need him to come down here an' die again for what I did." Jack rose from the pew. Standing, he felt the need to offer the baffled priest some explanation. "I got papes to sell," he offered as though it were an answer that refuted any question the father might have asked, then excused himself and walked back down the aisle and out of the smoke smelling church. Just before the massive wooden door slammed shut behind him, he caught the last verse of the doxology sung by the rehearsing choir. The song echoed from the high loft and filtered down upon the rest of the church with a perfectly harmonized haunting melody filling the ears of whomever was in close enough or cared to listen.

"_Jack, what's your vote?" When Jack didn't answer, Kit tried once more. He rapped his knuckles loudly on the table and raised his voice to a volume of force. "Jack!?! You alive down there? I asked you what your vote was."_

"_I, uh...I'm," Jack heaved an exhalation full of frustration and exhaustion. He rubbed his temples as though massaging them along could chase the dull, persistent ache from his head. "Oh, what does it matter what I vote? You got your answer."_

"_You still have to vote, Jack," Charlie insisted. _

_Jack didn't bother refuting Charlie. He didn't even bother acknowledging him with a look. He didn't want to plead for his side or make his case. He didn't want to fight anymore. He was tired and homesick and sick to death of the entire damned thing. Therefore, Jack only stared down at the table and continued rubbing the sides of his head. "In that case, I vote not to vote," was his reply. "It's not what Spot would have wanted."_

"_Well," spoke up Mac. "If Spot were still here, there wouldn't be any need for him to want or not want anything." Mac had been practically silent for the entire proceeding. It seemed to Jack that he'd only found his voice within the last two hours. He spoke up when there was something to be won, Jack mused to himself. Only when he had to, and other than that, he didn't appear to give a damn._

"_Whatever," said Jack with a sneer._

_Kit groaned and mumbled curses under his breath. He was long tired of Jack's stubbornness and his downright refusal to comply with anything the entire meeting. He disputed anything that was said in opposition to his case, and refused to pay mind to or even hear reasoning if it did not support his cause. Jack's attitude was impossible and selfish, and Kit had had just about enough of it. If Kelly wanted to act like a child, he supposed he'd have to treat him as though he were one. "Okay, Jack. Fine. Have it your way. I'll count your vote to not vote as an "against". That alright with you?" When Jack said nothing, Kit nodded and then began to look around the room to each boy as he quickly tallied the votes in his head. After he counted them once more just to be certain, a somewhat relieved look of finality came over his face and his brow unfurrowed itself for the first time since the talks had begun. "Alright then. It's settled," he said, "That's two against, and four for." _

_Jack's shoulders slumped. He knew what the count would be. He knew exactly how things would end. But in his head, somehow he held onto to the prospect that perhaps it would somehow not turn out that way. Now that the votes were in and everything was said, done, and utterly final, Jack found he could deny it no more. It was what it was and there would be no changing it. His heartbeat slowed itself to a painful thumping, each pulse of silence injuring him more. He closed his eyes and clenched his left hand in his right, bracing himself for the next inevitable sentence to fall from Kit's mouth. However, it would not be the smooth, cool tone of Kit Nellwyn that breached Jack's ears. Instead, he heard a snide, pleased voice dripping with oily satisfaction rise out of the silence. _

"_She can meet Spot in the river," Lamp Leonard remarked, "It's only fitting."_


	5. Chapter V

Chapter V

"I'm not going to make it, Jack."

It was a simple sentence, consisting of only seven words, yet it resounded with as much force as a battle cry or the church bells the knelled in the tower of St. Peter's. An offhand statement as it was, from Raven's mouth it couldn't help but sound anything but bittersweet. Mournful. She wasn't the grieving type - certainly not for herself. Meeting her fate with slight reluctance, yet with bravery. Then again, what did she have to life for? The answer lay in her eyes and it told Jack everything and nothing.

"You sound real calm about that. Too calm," Jack warned.

"Well, it's gonna happen, isn't it? What can I do up against a hundred boys stronger than me? Kick and scream and take a few swings at 'em hoping that I hit one of them? They've got their mind made up and nothing's gonna change 'em. Trying to fight against them...well...that's just stupid. I'm a lot of things, but I ain't that. Don't think that I like this. Don't you be thinking that one minute, Kelly. Don't make me into some martyr, some stupid romantic that lives and dies for the her one true because that's not who I am. There's so much more that I could do with my life. I was gonna get out of this hellhole, Jack. I was. I don't know how I was gonna do it, but I was, even if it killed me. And I guess it killed me after all." She was silent in between breaths: pregnant pauses that punctuated the thoughts that weighed more heavily on her than any proper thoughts rightly plaguing any seventeen year old. She sucked air in raggedly and then grazed her tongue over the cracked and bleeding skin of her worn bottom lip and began to speak softly. "When you boys all leave me alone to do whatever it is that you do and post some dumb, bored kid outside my door, I stay on this ledge for hours lookin' out of my window. I sit in the dark, thinking. I close my eyes. But there's no difference - between eyes open and eyes shut. The dark is still dark, and I'm still awful and miserable in it. Lately, I have to try harder than I ever thought possible to just keep goin' and not let 'em see me break. And I have to realize that one way or another, regardless of what happens, there will be light."

What she was now was a far cry from the way he remembered her to be. In his mind, she was always the too-tough girl with the smart mouth and quick wit. The one who knew it all, did it all, and told about it all. She was never weak and never shrinking. Never the hollowed out being that searched the night for her answers and lived at the mercy of others.

"_Hey, Jacky boy!" Ray called up, walking quickly over to Jack's selling spot. She dug her hands into the pockets of her trousers and produced a few crumpled up dollar bills and some quarters. "Give these back to Racetrack, will ya?" she asked, pushing the money into Jack's hands. _

"_What? Why?" Jack questioned with furrowed brow. _

"_Because I won it offa him a few days ago. Cards...I got real lucky and he just wouldn't admit defeat...so he kept pushing the money into the center and I kept winnin' it offa him. I found out yesterday that he's been sleepin' in the streets because he don't have the money to afford the lodgin' house. I feel bad, you know? Making another kid sleep in the street because I got on one hell of a lucky streak."_

"_Um, okay," Jack replied, putting the money into his own pocket and hoping that he'd remember to give it back and not spend it. "But why can't you give it to him?"_

"_Well, you'll see him before I do. And 'sides, he won't take it back from me. That boy's got too much pride." She took a drag off of her cigarette and then threw it to the ground and smothered it with her toe as she blew out the remaining blue smoke through her nostrils. "Racetrack Higgins don't take no charity from anyone," she mimicked in low, gruff false voice. Returning to her own voice with a knowing raise of her eyebrows she added, "You know how he is." _

"_Well, you're a real saint, Ray," Jack teased, patting his stuffed pocket and grinning smugly. _

"_Yeah, I know," she replied. "Just do me a favour and don't tell anyone, would ya Jack? I'd like to keep it just between you and me. Don't even tell Race that I gave it to ya. Just tell 'im that you found some money that was his or somethin'. Make something up – I don't care what you say as long as it doesn't make me look bad, of course." _

Silence fell down around, thick as the night air outside of Ray's window. Jack groped within his mind and the sights of the room around him in order to think of something, of anything to say to her – to assuage whatever heavy sickness she could be feeling, but nothing came. He opened his mouth to say something likening to "What do you mean?" However, when he tried, all that came out was exhaled breath in the absence of his usually strong voice, so he closed his mouth, pursing his lips tightly and decided it best just to keep quiet. Jamming his hands into the folds of his arms, he brushed the toe of his boot across the floor in a backwards and forwards sweeping path, taking an overly attentive amount of interest in the path that it made into the dust and grime.

From the heavy darkness came a low, "Well...did he, Jack?"

Jack lifted his head to see Raven hunched over on her sill-perch, head hanging low and finger tracing an awkward, shaky pattern in the condensation on the window's pane. "Did he what?" Jack asked, almost knowing what the answer would be and not wanting to hear it.

"You know," came the reply. "Did he sneak around with that slut girl while still playing nice with me? Did he betray me?"

"I thought you already knew the answer to that."

Ray didn't look away from the scene outside her window, but Jack could just make out her reflection smile weakly in the glass. "Come on, Jack. Don't play dumb with me. Don't patronize. I've been through enough. I don't need you makin' fun of me. I got the wool pulled over my eyes and I feel damn stupid for it. Plus, you boys really know how to do some damage to a girl." She shifted her gaze to Jack's face, raising her eyebrows quizzically as she rubbed the burns around the circumference of her wrist where the newsboys had bound her with harsh rope any time she exited the dank, dark confines of her makeshift attic prison. She tried to laugh, but it only came out weak sounding and hollow as her face quickly fell back into the sordid, sullen expression she had taken to wearing constantly. Subconsciously, she rubbed the brown-red burn that cut across her wrists – a memento of the ropes the boys used to crudely bind her whenever they needed to move her.

Jack sucked in a ragged breath, mentally preparing for the truth that, although small and insignificant as it was, would deal her world a blow and send it crashing down around her. He wished he had a cigarette to calm his nerves and sort out his thoughts into something more stable and clear. However he had foolishly smoked the last one hours ago during a weak moment when all the heavy build-up of the last two weeks constricted his chest and made it hard to breath. "As far as I know," he began slowly, watching her face for any slight flinch or sign of sensitivity. "He did kiss her. But he swore to me that he was drunk and that it was an accident. It was a surprise to me. I didn't expect it at all. I thought they didn't have anything goin.' I, mean, I knew they talked and all, but I thought they were just close like that and you know...when you're drunk you do stupid things. And well...that's all I know about.

Without tearing her sight away from the window, Ray mumbled, "Yeah, that's cheating." Then, unexpectedly, she merely shrugged and laughed softly. Ironically. "Guess it doesn't matter much now," she said.

Though she was unwilling to speak about it or even mention it without a laughing or brushing it off as something trivial, her hurt radiated through the room, and once again, Jack felt as though he were unable to breathe. He slowly crossed the room, moving toward her post on the window. Hesitantly, he reached out a hand and placed it comfortingly upon her shoulder. In response, she shirked away, slumping her shoulders and huddling close to her window. Lifting her own hand, Raven brushed his gesture of comfort and friendship off, unwilling to accept help from anyone.

The display before him suddenly became too much for Jack to handle. Too much for him to have to endure maturely and impartially. He ran both hands through his hair...angrily shoving back any loose strands that dared to touch the skin of his face. And then he exploded. "God! Spot was MY FRIEND. You're MY FRIEND! I shouldn't have to do this. I can't do this. I can't...I can't do this."

"You're right," Raven said simply. "You can't. You've proven that." She sighed deeply, but still kept her eyes off of his figure, instead choosing to cling to the window as her only solace. "You're so selfish, Jack. You only think about how you feel about this. What it's all doing to you. I know Spot was your friend and you're sad because he's gone. But don't forget - he was...mine too. More than that. You know how I felt about him." Her words had come out choked and halting, as though speaking them broke off chunks of her crumbling heart. "Now he's dead...and I'm sitting here like a God damn prisoner. They tie me up and point fingers at me and spit on me for killing 'their leader.' Their leader. Like he was never anything to me. I couldn't even go to the funeral. How do you think I feel? Don't tell me what _you _can't do."

She had him. Whatever words he might have previously planned on saying stuck in his throat and silenced him. It was just as well. They were all useless at this point. Jack could not lift one word to challenge anything she had just said. So he remained unspeaking and forward facing, trying hard not to shine his shoes with his eyes.

But Raven was no content with simply stopping there. She was on a roll and had every intention of continuing on. "Was I really your friend, Jack? Or did you just use me for a fuck and then feel back about it so you thought that keeping me around would make up for it?"

Jack could feel the heat rising up the back of his neck. He clenched his jaw and balled his hands into tight fists, utterly seething. Without warning or reason, he charged at her, raising his voice to a volume he was sure the entire house could here. But Jack could not have cared less at that moment. "Shut up, Ray," he commanded, using a tone that many had always expected he was capable of, but few had actually ever heard. "Shut the fuck up! You've gone too far!" Words were being spat out between his teeth, carrying rage and malice that cut sharply through the tension thick air. It was almost a relief for Jack to be screaming, for something inside of him had been inwardly shrieking for weeks. It felt right for it to finally all pour out like water from behind a damn. Without a second thought as to what he was doing, Jack raised his right hand and reared it back as if preparing to strike her.

But surprisingly, Raven did not move out of the way or show signs of a flinch. "Hit me," she said to him, her eyes still not meeting his. "It won't hurt. Nothing hurts anymore. Hit me if it makes you feel better. At least it will do one of us some good."

Shocked by her indifferent tone and his violent gesture, Jack held back. He let his hand drop to his side and slowly backed away before turning on his heel suddenly and storming out of the room. From her perch, Raven could still hear his angered shout perfectly: "Snoddy, it's your turn to watch the bitch."

Following his orders, Snoddy wandered inside, a bewildered look ablaze in his blue eyes. "What..." he started to ask, but stopped short at the site of her shadowed silhouette in the window. Her presence was subdued and drooped. Hunched over she sat, knees pulled up to her chest and hugged close, head hanging, not speaking. Not moving, the only quake in her was the gentle fall and rise of her back that marked consistent breaths. The only sign that there was life still left her bedraggled, disparaged mass besides the discreet tears sliding down her face.

Down the stairs and out of the lodging house Jack fled. He took to the streets as was his custom. They were his streets and he knew them well. It was a strange notion though. That one would prefer the mean streets of Lower Manhattan to the security and comforts of the safe-house the lodging house had come to represent. Though most nights he took to wandering aimlessly, this night Jack set off alight with a purpose. He parted night's thick veil and sought out Marion – the one remaining comfort he had to walk him through the war that raged outwardly and inside of him. The division of his loyalties. And how ironic it was. Jack had lived a lifetime in which to make friends, and make them he had. Parents, acquaintances, girlfriends, best friends, boys that would live and die for you if you asked them to – he'd had them all. Yet the only soul he trusted to give rest to his own was a veritable stranger.

Spot had always talked of loyalty. The fact that all a guy had out there in the streets among the poor orphans and runaways was his friends. It wasn't a hard thing for an early orphaned boy who'd been on the streets his entire life to realize. Friends became family and family was everything. Jack knew that secretly Spot had even come to regard Raven as the very best of his makeshift family. The other half of himself. Now, in adherence to his own philosophy of sticking together and defending each other, Spot's boys, the same rag tag group of boys, was seeking to murder his family...for murdering him. It was a cruel and twisted joke that fate had played upon them all and try as he may, Jack could not find the humour. He could not find much in it at all, besides dreariness, guilt, and sickening grief. He held his stomach as he walked, trying to ward off an oncoming bout of nausea. In all of these thoughts of grief and darkness, he strangely recalled what Raven had mentioned in the upper room. His version was probably not as well said as she had placed it...not as poetic. But it clung to his heart and head in the language Jack knew best and he struggled to keep it close to his heart during those dark hours: You have to realize that one way or another, despite what happens, there will be light.

Yeah, but it won't be damn well soon enough coming. Jack calculated in his mind the years he thought it'd take before he didn't think about Spot's demise every day.

Pushing his way through the old door that barely held onto its hinges, Jack held his breath as it creaked in lonely desperation. As quietly as he could manage, he tiptoed through the open lobby of the old warehouse, creeping past the familiar parts of machinery and prosperity now left to rubble and ruin. She told him to never come there without invitation. That thought weighed heavily on his mind as he trod the path through her abode's construction. But he needed to find her. He needed her...to talk to him. To comfort him. To do something other than be a reminder of the harrowing events of days recently passed. She was the only one he knew that was not somehow entangled in the mess that the realm of New York's finest paper pushers had become. His entire life, it seemed, and everything and everyone it in were involved. She was the only one free of it – his only means of momentary escape.

As he made his way up the stairs, he wondered what would be awaiting him at the top. Jack pictured Marion's surprised face turning toward the door and furrowing into a scowl of disappointment. He tried to imagine what he would say to her that would convince her to be merciful, though he'd directly broken a promise. However, when he crossed the threshold of the small attic office that she called her flat, he found nothing. Not even the smoldering traces or sent of a necessary night fire. She'd obviously not been there for some time. Jack sat down on her straw and woolen, moth eaten pallet and wondered where she could have roamed to. He was somewhat thankful that she had not caught him showing up unexpected and without good reason, yet he was moreso remorseful at her absence.

The foggy mist had not yet overtaken the streets and Jack was glad for it. But one inhale, one sniff of the wet night air told him that consumption of the city to the fog was not a far off event. Though it was darker and the air usually more muddled and murky, Jack found that he could see more clearly in the gentle throes of nighttime. The moon cradled him like his dead mother had. In its pale shadow, the solitude of his nocturnal walks brought him comfort and time away from the oppressive nature of the lodging house and the boys that inhabited it.

The boys.

More and more, Jack was beginning to realize that this war was unlike no other that he had seen in his time. They did not know how to behave, so therefore, they behaved in the only way they were taught. All they knew of the world was cruelty and hardness, therefore it was right that these were the predominant traits reflected in their actions.

They had always been quick tempered boys set on beating each other with sticks or words...but this time, their enemy was not another gang from Harlem or the Battery. Though they thought it was this girl...this mere girl...it was really themselves that they fought. All of the suspicions and the truths that they did not want to admit. Those ugly little seeds of revenge, violence, and hatred that sprung up within them all...that when hurt, lashed out at the closest thing touchable.

He didn't understand it. He didn't understand any of it. What he understood least was why Ray would have reacted as she did. The pieces of the puzzle were all there. Raven had a jealous streak that raged like mad whenever slightly provoked. She also had the temper and strong will to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. She was volatile enough...easily provoked enough. And then there was that knife...that cut across Spot's throat. Ray had a knife that could do such work. She pulled it out quite a bit in a threatening manner, but Jack had never seen her use it except to cut an apple or carve something into a tree. She was an easy target yes – a likely candidate for the boys to point fingers at. She had ever motive to do it. But something did not add up. The unsettling truth of the matter...a truth perhaps only Jack and Raven herself knew was that Spot was her world...the only thing she had within a thousand mile radius. She needed him. She'd never admit it, but she did. Raven depended upon Spot for her very life. It made no sense to Jack why she, however angry she was at being betrayed, would have just cut the thread of her life so simply, so hastily.

As he walked onward and mulled things over, Jack found it less and less easy to believe that Ray guilty of such condemning sins. But, as she had also said before, what could he do against the wills of a hundred boys fighting in opposition? Therefore, he set his mind to considering other possibilities. Spot had died, had been killed by the hand of another human. A human bearing a knife. Raven had a knife and a hot temper. She also would have not been happy had she found out that Spot was flitting around with another girl behind her back. This was all that any of them knew – the only evidence. Everything else was speculation. Would Ray be blinded with anger upon finding out? Would she be blind enough to purposely kill? Even accidentally kill? And if not Ray, then who? Jack ran though every person he could think of that had any conflict with or access to Spot Conlon. The Brooklyn boys weren't likely to let an outsider in through their doors and Spot wouldn't have let just any random stranger in through his window. Esco looked up to Spot like a brother and had a strong alibi – all of the boys had seen him in the bunkroom for the questionable time. Lizzie was a possibility, but what reason would she have? Who was left? Manhattan? Jack supposed it was possible, but again, didn't really see any reason. Manhattan had no beef with Brooklyn and knew very well the consequences any of them could run into should they mess with any Brooklynite, especially the leader. The only others that came to mind were other newsboys around town or perhaps someone from Spot's past. But finding one guilty part in that lot was like fishing for one little red fish with no bait in a lake a mile wide. He sought answers, yet with any avenue of thought that he took, Jack seemed to only slam up against another wall.

Nothing made any sense. Maybe there was no sense left in the world – only absurdity. And we merely had to abide by it and never question it because there weren't any answers. It was frightening possibility that almost made sense in itself...if there were any to be had.

As Jack stepped out of the dank darkness and back into the dim, yellow light of the Lower Manhattan Lodging House, he was immediately greeted by the sight of Kid Blink. He was hunched over, jaw resting on the back of his closed fist, leaning upon the front desk – the last awake, left waiting up long after Kloppman had gone to bed. Jack nodded a hello to him, knowing that of the boys left behind in Manhattan, he'd been the lucky one elected to keep watch out for him that night. Though, by the looks of it, it didn't seem that he'd been doing much watching. The sheen in Kid's eye was dull and foggy, as though he'd been sleeping only to be rudely awakened by the open and shut of the front door.

There was no real greeting between them. "Coffee, Jack?" was all that Blink asked as Jack had come through the door with fog and rain still in his hair. "Kloppy got it the other day," he explained further. His voice was raspy and slow, but making effort to quicken and seem lively. "You weren't here though. It's the real stuff. Not that strained dirt they sell for real cheap around the corner. I can pour you a cup if you want."

"Um, sure Kid," Jack replied with a shrug, too tired and too preoccupied to think of a good reason to refuse. If it was indeed the "real stuff" as Blink had claimed, then Jack could use the jolt and comfort it would offer him. He watched as the promise cup was prepared and then poured, the sound of the liquid trickling against the old chipped porcelain nearly echoed through the half empty quiet. When it was held out to him, Jack accepted it readily, burning his fingertips a bit when he absentmindedly wrapped both hands around the cup. He flinched a bit, but quickly endured the searing feeling in exchange for the warmth that filled his insides when his two sips taken filtered down his throat and into his gut.

As Blink curiously watched Jack suck down the coffee intently and methodically, he wanted more than anything to ask what had been taking place down in Brooklyn. Yet, he knew it was still a very sore subject for the downtrodden Manhattan leader, so he refrained and busied himself with pouring his own cup of the black liquid. However, he felt that he had to fill the awkward silence between them with talk of something, so he instead offered, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Jack stopped drinking and looked at Blink with confused interest. His sudden statement had broken Jack's concentration – jolting him back into the reality from his thoughts. "Huh?"

"Oh, sorry. I was just talkin' off the top of my head. A guy named Plato said that. I read it in this book that Davey let me borrow the other day. I was thinkin' about it just before you walked it. I thought it sounded pretty true – 'specially for street rats and bummers like us."

"You read?" the question was more calm surprise than shock, and Jack delivered it as such, taking another sip from his cup. The quotation had struck a particular chord in him. However, since he could not identify or describe it, he had pushed it to the back of his mind.

"Yeah..." Blink's voice trailed off into the distance and his gaze followed. "Don't do it much. But sometimes, when there ain't much goin' on around here, I pick up a book to pass the time. It helps."

Jack wanted to ask him "with what?", however, instead it swirled the thick, dark drink around and watched the steam twist up from it. "I, uh, didn't know you read books, Kid," he said, paying more attention to his cup that he gently set on the table than to his friend. He was still preoccupied, his mind running circles around possibilities that were could condemn or acquit Raven.

Blink shrugged as though the idea of him reading books were really nothing to think or speak of. "You should get some sleep," he told his friend. "You look beat. It ain't good for a man to keep goin' like that. You could get sick or somethin'..'specially round this time a year when it rains a lot."

"Yeah, you're right. Thanks, Kid: I'm glad you care and all. The world needs more people that care. But you shouldn't worry 'bout me. I'm no one to worry about." Jack lifted his hand to point upward, in the direction of the stairs. "I'm gonna go get some sleep. You should turn in too. Ain't good for a guy to be sittin' up all night either. Take your own advice." With that, Jack parted ways with his friend and set about climbing up the stairs. His step was slow, but his mind still fired off thoughts at a rapid pace. _Esco...no not likely. Lizzie, but how? When? Why? Who did Spot know? He was always friends with Kit, but they never done each other wrong. Midtown and Brooklyn's always been tight – just like 'Hattan and Brooklyn. Hmm...maybe a guy from around here. Race didn't like Spot too much when they played cards...or if he was drinkin'. But Race wouldn't kill nobody. 'Sides, Race was here that night. Wasn't he? _Jack's mind tripped over that thought – he, himself, wasn't at the lodging house that night to verify whether Race was. Where had he been? Oh...the alley...the rain...Marion. _No, can't think about Marion. No time for that. Who else? Some jilted girl that Spot had screwed for all she was worth and then threw away when he was tired of her? _He racked his mind, trying to compile a list of girls that Spot had left in his wake before Ray had come along. It had been a long time previous – too long to remember. Jack had yet again backed into another corner.

By this time, he had reached the doorway of the bunkroom and passed through. Kicking off his shoes and tying his dirty red bandanna around the bed post, he threw his hat to the floor and stripped down to the dingy longjohns he wore under his clothing. As he settled into this bed, he felt his eyelids start to droop with a vengeance, heavy with a week of insomnia's cruel aftermath. But no – he couldn't fall asleep just yet. He still had not come to any trace of a conclusion. Each moment passed was one closer to an unpleasant consequence. Each moment lost with the question still unanswered only managed to seal Raven's fate further. Jack was angry. Angry that his friend was dead, angry that another was about to die...angry that he still had no redemption for either of them. He battled with himself to stay awake, to press further and get somewhere. However, it was a vain battle that he fought with fatigue as the strong and likely victor. One of the last avenues that he explored before shutting his eyes tight and surrendering was Lamp. Lamp from the Bronx...the Bronx. Jack fell asleep for one brief second, but suddenly awakened with a start.

_The Bronx._

Wasn't that where Raven was originally from? And...more importantly...didn't she have a brother there? Jack remembered Ray speaking of her brother – how he wasn't the nicest fellow a guy could run into on the street...how she wouldn't advise anyone running into him on the street. She had been very flippant and forthcoming in her honesty when she spoke bluntly of his temper and jealousy...of his cold-heartedness. Jack knew that Ray wasn't even sure that her brother was still alive. But if he were – if he were and found out about how Spot was hiding her away in his Brooklyn abode, far away from the clutches of a jealous brother... The notion of it seemed to fit and fit well. Almost too perfectly. Why hadn't Jack thought of it before? He mulled it over. There was nothing he could do that moment. He'd have to wait until daybreak to investigate further. So, with the slight comfort that his hint of a discovery brought him, Jack would have to be content. At least until sunrise. Therefore, with nothing left to do, he laid back in his bed, resting his weary, aching head on the thin, lumpy pillow underneath and licked his chapped lips as he succumbed to the siren call of sleep.


	6. Chapter VI

(A/N: Two updates in two weeks? Yeah, I don't know what's going on either...)

Chapter VI

"Lamp, we gotta talk," Jack said to the boy, the unwelcome visitor who'd taken up temporary residence in an empty bunk in the Brooklyn Lodging House...to take care of business for the time being, he'd explained with a shrug. The East Bronx leader was sprawled out on a bed, his right hand cradling his messy, matted, dingy blonde hair and his left hand lightly holding a half smoked cigar. As Jack sharply inhaled, he could smell the grime of his skin and the smoke and dirt in his clothing. The distinct odor was the same stench that lingered upon them all, but Lamp's seemed particularly repulsive to Jack.

Lamp tilted up the brim up his cap just enough so that he could peer out from under it. At the sight of Jack standing expectantly before him, his cat-like green eyes narrowed to slits and he licked his lips in contemplation. "What about?" he asked with the sharp hint of interest.

Jack felt wrong even standing there talking to Lamp, as though he were betraying both himself and Ray. _Ray_ whom he'd have a conversation with earlier and promised exactly not to be standing there discussing the matter he was about to discuss with Lamp, ever.

_He found himself once more in that same attic makeshift jail, looking upon the same figure that was hunched and withering away. She'd refused to eat or drink much and only talked a few select words to those she deemed worthy, few as they were. "Ray, I think I know a way to get you out of here," Jack softly began. _

_Ray didn't look at him. Not one part of her flinched to acknowledge his presence. But Jack was used to it. Since being shut away and condemned, she hadn't exactly been much for conversation or even long glances. The window was her only ally – her view out onto the world that she'd never know to be the same again. "Oh, do you?" she muttered. Her tone told him that she thought that he most certainly did not, but her inquisitive nature would not let her not ask._

"_Yeah, I do. You ain't gonna like it though." Jack shuffled his feet nervously and waited for her reply. No, she wasn't going to like it. He knew she wasn't. Jack wondered how just many words he would be able to get out before she silenced him with utter refusal to listen._

"_Tell me anyway."_

"_It's about the Bronx...and your brother."_

"_I changed my mind, I don't want you to tell me anymore," Ray interrupted_

"_Oh come on Ray. Can you for once in your life just hear me out? Just listen? It might save your ass if you give it half a chance. No matter how much you don't like the sound of it at first." He was pleading with her. Begging her to care about herself and to somehow want to fight against the horrible hand she'd been dealt. Raven's reaction was only silence, which Jack readily accepted as her surrender to listen. Before she could offer up a word in protest, Jack delicately and hesitantly stated, "Do you think that maybe, your brother – if he got mad or jealous enough – would kill somebody?"_

"_My brother would kill anyone if they had the bad luck of gettin' in his way. It wouldn't take him getting very mad or jealous," she responded point blank._

"_Well, do you think that your brother could have gotten wind that you were in Brooklyn?"_

"_I s'pose."_

"_Okay, well, don't you think that it might be possible that your brother knew you were in Brooklyn and knew Spot was takin' care of you and didn't like it very much? That he coulda gotten really mad and stuff...so much that he could have killed Spot?" Ray was silent once more so Jack simply proceeded onward, letting his mouth lead, spilling the contents of his mind. "Because I've been doin' some thinkin', and it all adds up. I mean, Hunter's one mean bastard who don't like nobody takin' what's his, right? It makes sense to me that he thinks that you's his, and that Spot coulda took you from him. That woulda been enough, right? Then the bastard could've played all nice to Spot and climbed into his window just after you climbed out of it. Spot's enough of a cocky son of a bitch to take a challenge if he sees one presentin' itself. He would've let Hunter in just to see what would happen because he though he was invincible enough to just knock Hunter's block off if trouble started goin' down. Hunter's the kind to carry a switchblade, right? He coulda just slit his throat right there and-"_

"_That's enough, Jack," Ray interrupted once again. "I don't want to hear any more of it."_

"_But Ravy – don't you see? That's what happened. It's gotta be that way because you didn't kill nobody. You and me gotta go to the others and tell 'em what happened. We gotta try Ray."_

_Raven turned her gaze away from the streets outside her window and set her eyes upon Jack. Her stare was hollow, yet icy and her eyes cut right through him, silencing his tongue with authority. In a voice more clear and more formal than he had ever heard her use, Raven tonelessly said, "Jack... My brother is dead. He is dead to me and I want nothing to do with him. Go away and do not ever mention his name to me again. Forget that you ever heard of him."_

Jack had gone away with his tail between his legs, feeling utterly guilty and promising that he wouldn't speak another word of it. Yet, there he was, breaking that very promise and standing firmly in his betrayal...just another in a list that he considered to be a bit too long. _Sorry Ray_, he thought. _It's something I have to do though. I won't let you fall apart._ "Someone you might know," Jack told Lamp bluntly. "Or be acquainted with."

The intrigue and Jack's vagueness must have piqued Lamp's interest, for he sat up in bed and pushed the cap back on his head, well out of his vision's range. The distinct glimmer of curiosity, though dulled, was present in his eyes, and Jack took this as a good sign. "Oh? And who might that be?" he asked through his teeth.

Jack hesitated before speaking the aforementioned person's name. He knew that it would be a particularly weighted name to utter and he had to prepare for whatever reaction Lamp would throw his way. Jack sniffled and rubbed at his nose, shifting his eyes from Lamp's face to the open bunkroom door as he said, "Hunter. He holed up in your territory...or at least he used to awhile back. I was wondering if you knew him. Knew what he might be doin' or where he might be stayin'." Jack brought his gaze back to the other boy's face, searching for some sign of recognition or some telltale flinch. But Lamp offered him nothing except a too-controlled sneer.

"Yeah," he said slowly, lips parting a bit to reveal his teeth. Teeth that were cut jagged and sharply. "I mighta known him way back then. But I ain't got no idea where he is now." He cracked his knuckles, each snapping separately and moving in line with a sharp pop. Lamp, then readjusted the hat upon his head, pulling the bill until it tilted slightly ajar on his head, finishing his sentence with, "Or what he might be up to. Sorry." With his apology, Lamp leaned forward and rested his weight upon his knee, raising his eyebrows slightly as he provoked Jack to challenge his alibi.

Jack took bait. "You sure? You sure you don't know nothing? Nothing at all?" Lamp only offered a silent shaking of his head in response, provoking Jack to only press further, harder. "What about Ray? She used to live there. You gonna claim you don't know nothing about her while you sit here and say that you're sure that she's just the type to slit a guy's throat? Or is that a secret too?"

Lamp made a show of placing his cigar butt into a tin can kept at his bedside before sucking in breath in preparation to answer. But before he did, he chewed at the nail of his middle finger, bit it off, and then spat it out deliberately onto the floor. "Let me make this clear to ya, Jack," he said, forming his finger into a pointing gesture that came to land directly on Jack when Lamp's tongue graced his name. "My territory is run jus' like Brooklyn is run. Now, I'm sure you're familiar with the way they do things around here, and if not, I'm sure Esco or one of the other boys is sittin' around somewheres downstairs and would be happy to inform you. You're a lot of things, Kelly...But you ain't stupid. You're a leader too, and I know you understand how _tryin_' it can be when someone tries to interfere the way you want things done. What happens in the Bronx stays there. Who might or might not have been there and what they did there is none of your business. If you want to know anythin' about where Ray comes from or what she did in her messy little past, you'll have to run along upstairs and ask her yourself." Lamp shrugged his shoulders before adding in an oily smile that revealed his jagged teeth once more. "Not like she'll tell you though. That bitch is not a quick one to offer any helpful information. But you two's friends, right? You should know all about her."

Jack found himself more and more disgusted with Lamp with each word that dropped off of the boy's hard, dry lips. He was belittling and presumptuous...haughty above all things. Who did he think he was? Lamp may have been king in the realm of the Bronx, but here in Brooklyn, he was nothing to Jack. Jack Kelly entertained thoughts of grabbing Lamp by his shirtcollar, and then holding him down as he drove his fist firmly into Lamp's face. Strike after strike, blow after blow until the boy talked and told Jack something useful. It was a happy little delusion, and Jack wanted more than anything to carry it out. Brutality toward another brute would have let vengeance sweet glow of affirmation pour all over Jack's appeased head. But if there was one thing that he needed less of it, it was violence. Enacting more physical harm upon another newsboy, despite however much he deserved it, would only seek to add to the problems. Not vanquish them. So, Jack held both his tongue at his temper in check as he explored other options to get Lamp to cooperate.

At that moment, there was a light rap at the door. Lamp whipped his head around to see who might be intruding, but Jack kept his eyes on Lamp. The door opened with a pained creak, and Esco stuck his head inside. "Um, Jack..." he interrupted, sticking only his head inside the crevice he had made and shifting his eyes warily between the two other boys. When Jack whirled around to face him, he wasn't sure that he liked the look in Esco's eye. "You've got a visitor."

"Okay," Jack answered.

"Downstairs, in the lobby," Esco explained, and then exited as quickly as he had come, shutting the door tightly behind him.

"Well, Jack...it appears that you got a visitor," Lamp remarked with a sneer, accenting the word "visitor" with special emphasis. He reclined back into a lounging position upon the bunk and pulled his brown hat low over his eyes once more.

Jack heaved an irritated sigh. He had gotten nothing from Lamp. No hint, no sign, no slight affirmation that he was on the right path. The conversation was not over, as far as he was concerned. No, Jack had every intention of marching right back up the old wooden staircase after he'd dealt with whatever annoyance that requested his presence in the lobby and ringing Lamp's slimy little neck until he obtained the information he desired . Shooting the other boy an "I dare you to move" look, Jack started toward the door, excusing himself from Lamp's company with a grunt instead of a goodbye and trudged down the stairs. In place of the annoyance expected, he was met by Marion. Upon catching sight of her, the hardness disappeared from Jack's face. She stood politely at attention in the lobby, hands clasped in front of her, and her mouth, Jack noticed, was pursed slightly. Her complexion seem paler than ever - the colour of moonlight, perhaps - but her hair was the same deep black her remembered it to be, twisted into a loose chignon at the nape of her neck with tendrils working themselves out in rebellion. It seemed strange of him to see her standing there in Brooklyn and so early in the day. Marion was a creature that he had only had encounters with at night, and Jack never stopped consider how odd of a thing that was until he saw her standing before him so early. "Marion," he greeted her. "What are you doing here in Brooklyn and so early?"

"It's not early. The day's gone already," she replied evenly, forgoing hellos to gesture slightly out of the window. "See? The sun's gone done. It's dusk. Where have you been Jack?"

Jack's first impulse was to answer that he did not know where he'd been...that everything he said and did had passed by him in the most horrendous monotone blur of nothingness. One day flowed into another and soon they all blended together in one non-fabulous slur. He couldn't recognize the difference between day and night...between sleeping and waking. But instead of answering with a speech that was sure to sound near crazy, he only shrugged and simply told her, "Around."

"I went to your place...looking for you of course," she started, answering his former question. "A boy there was kind enough to help me out...Boots, I think he said his name was. He told me that you were spending most of your time in Brooklyn and I that I should inquire after you here."

"I'm surprised that a lady like you knows where to find a ramshackle place like this."

She smiled wisely. "I know my way around this city, Jack. Don't doubt my knowledge or means. I can get to where I want to go." Marion tilted her head to the side, examining Jack's worn features and the weary look he wore uncomfortably upon his face. "Jack, you look different. The boy I met not too long ago had such confidence and pomp in his step. You look like death incarnate. Is there anything you need to talk about? I'm a willing listener. You know that." She raised her hand up to his brow to lightly brush his hair off of his forehead. After she did, she let her hand trail over his cheek and down to his jaw, which she cupped in her hand tenderly.

Jack felt his entire face grow hot. He felt it burn. Objects began to swim in his peripheral vision. Was he sick? Did he have a fever? It was quite possible – Jack had been spending most of his time strung out and walking amidst the damp night air. But if he was sick, why was he only feeling so heady at this sudden instant? Time obscured, but Jack's intuition sharpened and realization dawned upon him. Everything stopped for a moment and he wondered how he could be falling in love at a time when everything around him was falling apart. Fate had interesting, ironic timing. The elation he felt by just letting his tongue stumble over the grace of Marion's name or allowing his eyes to drift over her features was a sharp contrast against the pang in his heart and befuddlement that made his chest heavy due to the tension, grief, and troubled times that surrounded him. The world felt to Jack like nothing substantial, only mad rush of breathlessness. In that moment, everything was perfect regardless of anything and everything. He didn't recall that his best friend was dead and another was on her way. He didn't feel the tightened grip that confusion had on his chest. He didn't care about Hunter's whereabouts or how the boy had quite probably fooled them all and caused a mess that was beyond Jack's cleaning up. The only thing he was aware of was that Marion was standing in front of him and that he could have her if he wanted her. Hell, he already had her and he marveled at his great luck in the sway he possessed over the heart of a being so intrinsically and uncannily beautiful.

Still dwelling in his hazy bubble, a loud noise suddenly reverberated off of his eardrums. A clamber of shuffling boots and closing doors – the tromp of boys' quick steps. He was immediately shuffled back into reality as he jerked his head around and shouted up to the rafters, "Get out of here! Damn eavesdroppers. Always pokin' their heads into business that ain't theirs."

"They're just kids, Jack," Marion returned. "They don't know any better." She reached out and touched his knuckles with her fingertips. It was reassuring, yet not enough to console him back into lofty daydreams.

Jack looked into Marion's soft eyes and wanted nothing more than to drown himself in them, to let the comfort of her arms and the velvet of her lips envelop him. But the ruckus upstairs had called him back to duty and reminded him that he was a leader of these urchins, vagabond orphans and runaways and that came with certain obligations. _Such as saving the life of a friend who couldn't save her own._ Jack suddenly hated everything his life stood for – every little compromise he had made, every little responsibility he had taken on, every little in and out that came with being one of the oldest and smartest in their ragtag population. With a deep, heavy, exhalation, he took Marion's small hand in her own and prepared to bid her goodbye. Yet, as he searched her face, his eyes kept tripping over the depth of hers and the way her mouth slightly parted with gentle partiality toward him whenever he looked at her. Like she was always on the verge of saying something wonderful – something that could rescue him from the bonds of the burden he never wanted. His desire weakened him and as much as he should have sent her on her way, he found that nothing in him would let go of her hand. No matter how much good common sense willed him to.

The last thing Jack remembered clearly was tightening his grasp on Marion's hand and stealing away with her under the blanket sky. With the blink of an eye, Jack escaped from the lodging house and all of the obligations it held for him. He could be free, he told himself. He could be free just for one night without consequence. It was an entitlement of every human being in his mind...even one that had fallen from grace. Back at her warehouse shelter, he laid her down upon the crude bedding and made love to her with such purpose and intent, losing himself in her embrace and letting her eyes take him to places he'd not yet traveled to. He buried his conscience in the back of his mind and was glad for its silence. Afterward, by the light of one old, yellow beeswax candle he watched as she haphazardly tried to smooth her hair back into the chignon it had once been. Her nimble fingers worked through her black hair, twisting, twining, and pinning each wayward lock into a replication of what it had been before the bed. Before the rhythm of their two bodies rubbed it loose. But no matter how she pinned and worked it, it refused to be what she had hoped it to be. Until finally in dissatisfaction, Marion relented and removed all of the pins, letting her hair fall loosely around her shoulders.

"Leave it," Jack mumbled sleepily, glancing up at her. "I like it. I've never seen it when you didn't have it pulled up. You look nice."

Marion smiled at him coyly, as if she believed him. As if merely his say had power over her. But, her coyness did not mean that she intended to mind his wishes. Instead, she combed through it with her fingers and divided it into three sections, easily transforming it into the braid she was so accustomed to being seen in.

When Jack awoke before sunrise, he expected to lean over and find Marion gone. He was so accustomed to having her vanish into thin air, that in the blue gray light of morning, he was startled when looked over and found Marion still sleeping beside him. Her black hair loosed from its braid and spread out over the pallet. She looked peaceful, lying there unconscious. Her face held not the conviction that could turn bows into arrows, but a new, welcome comfort – something that one could come home to. Yet, despite the glory and redemption he felt the night before, when Jack awoke, he simply felt stiff. The cold dull ache once more took comfortable place in his heart. Careful not to disturb the slumber of Marion, he pushed back the threadbare covers and slowly made his way to a stand. Jack dressed in silent distraction with unseeing eyes and a heavy heart. He draped his bandanna loosely around his neck before stooping to kiss her cheek gently. Then he departed, tying the red kerchief into a loose haphazard knot. Back out on the streets he found himself again. He had to squint to peer through the thick, wet air of pre-dawn, but such wasn't enough to detain him on his way long journey back to Brooklyn. There was no part of him that was happy to have it as his destination, yet time was growing shorter and shorter and he still had a monstrous load of information he had to find out before it was too late.

As he walked along, his boots pounding out a hard, steady rhythm on the cobblestone, Jack cursed himself for thinking that he could afford a night of reckless and selfish fun. He'd needed it, of that there had been no doubt. But such foolhardy actions were sure to come back and bite him in the rear. For those of Jack's status, there could be no good that did not come with an equal dose of bad. When the sun began to finally rise up over the brownstone structures and towers of steel built by the hands of many men, he found that he had to squint from its piercing light. His destination was due east enough to met by the sun shining in all of its morning splendor. Jack hated it and its non-mercy, its intense light that shone right into his eyes and rendered him blind. In any circumstance, he much preferred the moon. For what light she gave was few, but never harsh or intruding. Jack finally came to the river...the docks that Spot had loved so much. He'd spent so much time with him there because Spot insisted on being there so much. Jack stopped on Pier 6, Spot's favourite, and gazed out onto the water. The sunlight glinted off of its surface and sent shimmering rays lapping toward the pier.

In a sudden wave of nostalgia, a long lost memory broke through the hardened barriers of Jack's mind. It was faint at first, only appearing in fragments of words and pictures – a mere trickle. But the past was often much like a dammed river. The more one tried to hold it back, the harder it pushed. And push it did. The scene came flooding through the cracks and crevices of Jack's purposed forgetfulness and pieced itself back together in bittersweet completion. As he continued to stare out over the hushed, murmuring river, it grew stronger...strong enough to trick him into believing that it just happened the previous day, had circumstances not been so painfully otherwise. Though his mind's eye, Jack could smell the air of that lazy day – the rare afternoon where there'd been enough money for a full stomach and a night's stay without having to hawk the headlines of both editions. They were both fortunate then, he and Spot that day.

_Jack sat on the edge of the pier. He extended one leg down, only far enough to let the toe of his boot graze the skin of the water below him. Quick thundering footsteps rose up behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Spot leap and glide easily through the air until the water broke his flight. It overtook him with a large splash, from which Jack vainly protected himself with a raised arm and a scowl. "Spot!" Jack growled after the top of his friend's wet head popped back up into view. "What the hell was that for? You couldn't just climb in or somethin'? Fuck you. You always have to make a big show out of everythin'." _

"_Sorry Kelly," Spot mumbled, without a hint of regret. He shot Jack a smug half grin and then swum out a few feet from the dock. Jack watched him gently bob up and down as he treaded water, and wiped a few leftover beads of water from his own brow. _

"_Hey Jack," Spot called out turning around. "What would you think if I suddenly wan't the leader of this place no more?"_

"_I'd think that there was somethin' seriously wrong with ya," Jack stated without missing a beat._

_Spot chuckled in return. "You know, I can't run this place forever. I was thinking...about retiring someday. Doing something else."_

_Jack snorted. He wasn't sure if it was at Spot's declaration of wanting to leave in particular or the thought of any of them amounting to anything better than a newsboy. "No just who are you gonna get to run it when you leave? Brooklyn's like your kid. I ain't never known you to be anything but mighty protective of it. Who you gonna leave in charge of that?" he asked, one eyebrow raised quizzically. _

"_I dunno. Never thought about it," Spot remarked. He swam out a few more feet and then turned to speak to Jack over his shoulder. "Hey, uh, Jacky-boy, what are you doin' for the rest of your life?" he asked with a smirk._

"_Oh no...nuh uh Spot. You ain't ropin' me into taking care of your little hellhole. You gotta lot of nerve, ya bastard. I got things to do myself. Who says I want to stay here taking care of whiny little troublemakin' boys the rest of my life?"_

"_Don't call 'em whiny," Spot quickly shot back, showing his inbred protectiveness that Jack has moments ago spoken of. "Brooklyn ain't whiny. They a lot of things, but not that."_

"_Alright, fine. I take it back. Don't get so hot about it." Jack threw a pebble into the water and watched the ripples radiate from it until the largest circle licked at Spot's shoulders. He wondered how something so small could have such a profound impact on everything around it. "Why don't you get Esco to do it?" he offered. It was a simple, obvious solution, and he wondered why Spot had never thought of it._

_Spot furrowed his brow a bit and Jack was almost certain that he caught traces of a very slight scowl dragging down the corners of his mouth. "Esco?" Spot repeated._

"_Yeah. Esco. You know, your right hand man. The one you're so proud of. The one you claimed was like the brother you never had?"_

_Spot shrugged. "I guess he'd work. I jus' never thought of it. Never had to before. Hey Jack, whatcha gonna do when you get out of the newspaper business?"_

"_That's a dumb question, Conlon. You know that already. I'm gonna get myself a good hat...better than this old piece of shit that ain't worth nothin'. Then I'm gonna hop a train and not get off until it hits Santa Fe. Then, I don't know...I guess I'll work for a bit as a ranch hand or something. Be a real cowboy. Then when I save up enough money, I'll buy my own place out there. Get a few cows, some pigs and chickens. Set everything up right. What are you gonna do, Spot...when you retire like you keep sayin' you want to do?"_

"_Me? Well, I was thinking maybe I'd travel around a bit until I found a place that suited me better than New York."_

"_Something that suits Spot Conlon better than New York?" Jack asked with choked incredulity, surprise keying his voice higher than normal. "I don't think no place like that exists. You were made for a place like this. I can't imagine you bein' no place else."_

"_You might have to," Spot returned seriously. "There ain't nothing great about this city. It's crowded and dirty and it'll eat you alive if you let it. I'm tired of the way it keeps trying to swallow me. I'm tired of the dirt and the rats and the lice. I'm tired of always watchin' my back and waitin' for some stupid hotheaded kid with a knife to jump me and end it all. Nah, Jack...if there ain't a more perfect place for me than here, then I'd say I'm in a lot of trouble. I'm gonna find it, and when I do, I'll get a place of my own too. I'll buy a piece of land where I could see the sky touch the water and watch the sun kiss it every evenin'."_

"_Well that's beautiful, Spot. A nice little poetic touch on the end there. Didn't think a blockhead like you coulda thought of somethin' so sweet." Jack clapped his hand to his heart. "That's touching, really."_

"_Shut your trap, Kelly. Don't make me come outta this water and give your ass a good beating for picking on me," Spot fired back. "Now, seriously, how much do you think somethin' like that would cost?"_

_Jack snorted as he figured up the cost in his head. Something like that, something like the wild dreams in Spot's head would certainly run up a fair price. Hell, it'd probably even cost more than either of them could earn in their entire lives, put together. "Probably," Jack finally answered thoughtfully, "a lifetime's worth of gold." _

"_Hmm...that much, huh?" Spot asked. Jack nodded. Spot looked defeated for a moment at the thought of his dream vanishing into thin air before him. Then Jack saw his eyes light up and a smile drape itself over his face. "Well, maybe I could push a thousand papes an hour...if I did that and I didn't take no breaks 'cept to sleep and eat, I could make it easy. Right?" _

Such poor, sad dreams they all had. The streets and lodging houses were filled with poor, sad dreams unrealized. Penniless boys who were forced to grow up too fast...some never having been afforded a childhood at all. He was one of those pathetic kids that came in wide-eyed and full of hope and was only given emptiness in return. It's a fine life – yes, they all used to quote that little saying to one another, either in jest or in celebration when the times were good. But it wasn't really a fine life at all. It was bleak and ill-fated, and forever trapped the souls of men that fell under its false siren's call of freedom. Freedom, Jack thought with a scoff. There never was and would never be any freedom for Jack Kelly. Especially not now. His legs might of have been free to roam, but from that point onward, he realized that his heart would forever be enslaved to memories and how he'd lost those who made them.

A strange desire took hold of him and he stopped short. For a moment, he wished more than anything that he could somehow convince all of the boys to believe that he did it. That Jack, himself, was he culprit – the cold blooded killer. Then, they would throw him in the water and he could drown his sorrows and troubles and be through with it all. At least then, there would be a guaranteed way out. But as the lodging house came into view, Jack realized how cowardly selfish that plan of action would be. It'd be different if it were only him that he'd have to care for, but he couldn't let himself compromise all of the others. _The others_...yes, he had to think of them, for their sakes and his own. Ten minutes earlier, Jack had been gazing out upon the river, watching it reflect the sun's first light and his glorified remembrances. But the radiance of the earlier morning sun was short lived, for as he turned decisively toward the lodging house, the skies opened up. Raindrops poured upon him, drowning all of his fondness for the past in one unrelenting shower. Jack sighed heavily and shook his head – not in disbelief, for he thoroughly expected that whatever brightness there was would surely be short lived. "Same old, same old," he mumbled as he pulled his collar up and faced the storm on his own.


End file.
